George W. S. Trow

George William Swift Trow, Jr. (September 28, 1943 – November 24, 2006) was an American essayist, novelist, playwright, and media critic. He worked for The New Yorker for almost 30 years, and wrote numerous essays and several books. He is best known for his long essay on television and its effect on American culture, "Within the Context of No Context," first published in the November 17, 1980 issue of The New Yorker, and later published as a book. This was one of the few times that the magazine devoted its central section to one piece of writing.

Trow was born in an upper-middle-class family in Greenwich, Connecticut. His father was a newspaperman. Trow studied at Phillips Exeter Academy, and graduated from Harvard University in 1965. There, he was president of The Harvard Lampoon. He later served as an editor for its offshoot, the National Lampoon, working with young humorists like Michael O'Donoghue. He served on active duty in the U.S. Coast Guard. In 1966, Trow took a position at The New Yorker, writing articles for the magazine, especially in the section "The Talk of the Town," and contributing short fiction. He worked under editors William Shawn (1951-1987) and Robert Gottlieb (1987-1992), whom he saw as mentors.

In 1994, when new editor Tina Brown invited Roseanne Barr to oversee a special issue on women, Trow quit the magazine in protest. He abandoned the house he was building in Germantown, New York, and traveled around North America, living in Texas, Alaska, and Newfoundland. Several years before his death, he moved to Naples, Italy. He died there in 2006, officially of natural causes.

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