Latest Addition to The Thurber Library
The second German title this week! An Arno collection was mentioned here on Tuesday.
I won’t be acquiring every single foreign Thurber title I come across, but as this one’s theme is dogs, I couldn’t resist (I couldn’t resist the cover graphics either). It’s a 1958 paperback edition of Thurber’s Dogs, originally published in 1955 by Simon & Schuster.
It’s difficult for me to understand how well Thurber’s majestic flow of words in his captions translate from English to German. Here’s one example (link here to see the drawing):
“Well if I called the wrong number why did you answer the phone?”
The German caption:
“Warum melden Sie sich denn, wenn ich die falsche Nummer gewahlt habe?”
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Thurber House, at 77 Jefferson Avenue, Columbus, Ohio, is Thurber Central; the place where the ghost got in, and where the bed fell one night; the place where electricity was imagined to be leaking all over the house. It was also the home of an Airedale named Muggs, famously known, through Thurber’s classic My Life and Hard Times, as “The Dog That Bit People.”
Painful to say, but Thurber House needs financial assistance. You can donate here.
From WOSU Public Radio, December 3, 2024, “Downtown Columbus Literary Hub Looks to Raise $200,000 To Keep Its Doors Open”
and:
From Columbus Navigator, December 4, 2024, “Columbus Icon Faces An Uncertain Future”
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Thurber’s 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