They were an astonishing group: glamorous, gutsy, and irreverent to the bone. As cub reporters in the 1920s, they roamed across a war-ravaged world, sometimes perched atop mules on wooden saddles, sometimes gliding through countries in the splendor of a first-class sleeper car. While empires collapsed and fledgling democracies faltered, they chased deposed empresses, international financiers, and Balkan gun-runners, and then knocked back doubles late into the night.

Last Call at the Hotel Imperial (2023) is a prize-winning history written by Deborah Cohen. The book tells the extraordinary story of John Gunther, H.R. Knickerbocker, Vincent Sheean, and Dorothy Thompson, a close-knit band of wildly famous American reporters, who took on World War II dictators and rewrote the rules of modern journalism. They committed themselves to the cause of freedom, arguing about love, war, sex, death, and everything in between. Told with the immediacy of a conversation overheard, Cohen's revelatory book captures how the global upheavals of the twentieth century felt up close.

Interested in becoming a Mount Member? Join today!

The Mount is a Massachusetts Cultural Council UP designated organization welcoming participants of all disabilities. Please contact The Mount at 413-551-5100 or by email, info@edithwharton.org, to discuss accommodations needed to participate fully in this event. The Mount's Health and Safety Guidelines can be found here.