The Smart Set was an American literary magazine published monthly by Magus Publishing Company. Founded in 1900 by American Civil War soldier and publisher William d'Alton Mann (1839–1920), as a cultural counterpart to his gossip magazine Town Topics, the magazine slipped into decline following its acquisition by publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst. In 1929, it merged with McClure's to form The New Smart Set, before ceasing publication the following year in the wake of the Wall Street Crash.

Each issue featured serialized novels, short stories, poems and other literary works, along with satirical commentary on contemporary American society and culture. Under the joint-editorship of H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) and George Jean Nathan (1882–1958)—who were ultimately given complete editorial control over its literary contents—the magazine enjoyed its heyday between 1914 and 1922. Writing under the composite personage and pseudonym Major Owen Hatteras, the editors were able to critique American (“Puritan”) traditions and ideals, such as marriage, religion, and academe, while protecting their own reputations. First with the “Pertinent & Impertinent” column and eventually the “Americana” column, Hatteras observed and denigrated American institutions, frivolity and sentimentalism, materialism, racism, censorship, and conservatism. 

Mencken and Nathan’s editorship came to an abrupt end after they planned to run a satirical piece on President Warren G. Harding following his death in August 1923. They went on to establish the magazine The American Mercury the following year, in collaboration with the publishing magnate Alfred A. Knopf.

During its tenure, the magazine published contributions from a number of distinguished authors and poets, including Edna St. Vincent Millay, Theodore Dreiser, Aldous Huxley, Sinclair Lewis, Benjamin De Casseres, Eugene O'Neill and Dashiell Hammett, D.H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, William Butler Yeats, Ford Madox Ford, Jack London, Ambrose Bierce, Theodore Dreiser, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Bliss Carman, and Clinton Scollard, among others. In May 1915, it published two stories from James Joyce's (1882–1941) Dubliners, the first time Joyce's work appeared in an American publication, while F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) was introduced in September 1919 with his short story Babes in the Woods.

The Internet Archive Collection contains microfilm published between 1900 and 1930.