Nights in Fairyland: Gossip, Blackmail, and the Many Lives of “Broadway Brevities”

In 1925 the publishers of Broadway Brevities were tried for running an extortion operation targeting New York’s social and cultural elites.While the first version of the magazine whispered gossip in columnists’ suggestive innuendo, later incarnations shouted bold accusations in graphic tabloid headlines.On the pages of Broadway Brevities gossip was instrumentalized and urbanized, taking its place among the noisy, sensational features of city life. The life of the magazine’s long-time editor, Canadian-born Stephen G.Clow, runs through this story, connecting the different incarnations of the magazine and the circles in which they were published (in New York, 1917-34, and later in Toronto).Clow’s career took him from Manhattan’s literary world, in his role as a critic and book publisher, to notoriety as a scandal-mongering editor.Beginning in the 1920s Clow gathered - or fabricated - allegations about high-profile people in theatre, cinema, and enterprise, then threatened to publish unles