As The Elements of Style has long been a classic style manual, The New Yorker has long been the standard-bearer of American magazine journalism. Harold Ross founded The New Yorker in 1925 and was its editor until his death in 1951. Ross envisioned the magazine as funny, literate, and sophisticated, and he famously said that it was not "for the old lady in Dubuque." White began writing for the magazine in its first year and continued to do so until his death in 1985. He is widely credited with creating the magazine's distinctive style. The New Yorker has been so influential that generations of aspiring writers have looked to it for guidance and inspiration, much as they have looked to Strunk and White's book.

The late 1950s, when The Elements of Style was first published, was something of a golden age in American magazine journalism. At...