Joseph Mitchell was a legendary New Yorker writer and the author of the national bestseller Up in the Old Hotel, in which these two pieces appeared. What Joseph

‘It's a masterpiece, of course, but more than that it shows that there is some such thing as being a simple observer’ Nicci French, Independent It was 1932

From New Yorker staff writer and Harvard historian Jill Lepore, the dark, spellbinding tale of her restless search for the long-lost, longest book ever written,

The story of a notorious New York eccentric and the journalist who chronicled his life: “A little masterpiece of observation and storytelling” (Ian McEwan).

Saloon-keepers and street preachers, gypsies and steel-walking Mohawks, a bearded lady and a 93-year-old “seafoodetarian” who believes his specialized diet