Series III: Monocle and Monocle Books, 1957-2002, inclusive

This series has as its focus the Monocle, a magazine of satire and social criticism that Navasky and several friends founded and published while they were at Yale Law School and for some time after. In addition to correspondence and other relevant material, there are articles about Monocle and a number of full issues.

Monocle struggled financially and, in an attempt to keep the magazine going, the group initiated a related enterprise – Monocle books (which they called Pentacle Books). Their plan was to come up with ideas for books that didn't require authors; find trade-book publishers who were willing to pay for and publish them; hire researchers to do the work; and then use the profits to keep Monocle afloat and pay themselves. The book packaging effort produced more than thirty books. Many of these books are included in the series, along with background material. Among these, in Box 18, Folder 23, is their single bestseller – Report from Iron Mountain: On the Possibility and Desirability of Peace. Published in 1967 by Dial Press, it purported to be the suppressed work of a small government group whose outrageous conclusions were presented in bureaucratic prose with lots of actual footnotes. It was such a successful satirical spoof that some groups, particularly conspiracy theorists, continue to reject the numerous admissions and explanations of its authors and contend that it is the work of an actual secret government panel. In his book, A Matter of Opinion, Navasky provides the full story of what the Guinness Book of World Records calls the "Most Successful Literary Hoax."