The Very First Published Thurber Drawing
Edwin T. Bowden’s James Thurber: A Bibliography, the must-have book for Thurbermaniacs tells us that Thurber’s very first published drawing in a periodical, shown above*, was in Ohio State University’s Sun-Dial, November, 1917. It was followed by seven more drawings in the same paper, the last appearing March 7, 1918. The timeline for Thurber’s published periodical drawings then skips thirteen years to January 31, 1931, with his first New Yorker drawing. **
Anyone looking for a thread or threads connecting his 1917 work and his later work for The New Yorker might consider the art within the hanging pieces on the wall. The candlesticks on the mantel also look, to me, like candlesticks he would draw later in life: long rectangles constructed of wavering lines.
*The drawing can be found in Thurber & Company, published in 1966 by Harper Row.
**Stephen Nadler, who runs the fab Attempted Bloggery, has reminded me that E.B. White and Thurber’s Is Sex Necessary, published in 1929, famously included Thurber drawings. Bowden’s timeline excluded those illustrations as he was concentrating on “periodicals.”
This has led me to another section in Bowden, “Contributions To Other Books” where we find a number of drawings included in Ohio State’s The Scarlet Mask Club folios, beginning in 1922 and ending in 1924. We then find Thurber’s work in the 1930 book, Whither Whither, Or After Sex What? (published by the Macaulay Co. NY)…but it’s one Thurber written piece, no Thurber drawings. The book’s illustrations are handled by New Yorker artist, William Gropper. Bowden says Gropper’s cover design is “similar” to Is Sex Necessary …”and deliberately so it would seem”)
I’d love to be confident that all of Thurber’s published work (found in periodicals and books) in this period has been accounted for, but I think it’s better to wait and see what might turn up.
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James Thurber’s Spill A-Z entry:
James Thurber Born, Columbus, Ohio, December 8, 1894. Died 1961, New York City. New Yorker work: 1927 -1961, with several pieces run posthumously. According to the New Yorker’s legendary editor, William Shawn, “In the early days, a small company of writers, artists, and editors — E.B. White, James Thurber, Peter Arno, and Katharine White among them — did more to make the magazine what it is than can be measured.”
Key cartoon collection: The Seal in the Bedroom and Other Predicaments (Harper & Bros., 1932). Key anthology (writings & drawings): The Thurber Carnival (Harper & Row, 1945). There have been a number of Thurber biographies. Burton Bernstein’s Thurber (Dodd, Mead, 1975) and Harrison Kinney’s James Thurber: His Life and Times (Henry Holt & Co., 1995) are essential. Website
William Gropper’s Spill A-Z entry (you’ll note that Mr. Gropper is a member of the Spill’s One Club. He had but one cartoon published in The New Yorker during his career). :
William Gropper 
(Self portrait, from The Business of Cartooning, 1939) Born, December 3, 1897, NYC. Died, January 6, 1977, Manhasset, NY. 1 drawing, April 11, 1942. Quote:”I owe a great deal to the east side of New York. I was hit on the head with a rock in a gangfight…that’s how I became an artist.” [Quote from catalogue, Meet the Artist, 1943]. For a brief bio of Gropper “the workingman’s protector” visit: http://specialcollections.wichita.edu/
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Latest Cartoon Caption Contest Podcast: Marisa Acocella
Marisa Acocella, who began contributing to The New Yorker in 1998, is the latest guest on the entertaining Cartoon Caption Contest Podcast, hosted by Beth Lawler, Paul Nesja, and Vin Coca.
photo above, clockwise from top left: Beth Lawler, Paul Nesja, Marisa Acocella, Vin Coca.