Exactly one year ago today I posted the A Sunday Puzzler piece below. This afternoon, while going through a newly arrived (but old) book, E.B. White: A Bibliography, by A.J. Anderson (The Scarecrow Press, 1978), I came across the answer to the puzzle, efficiently explained in one sentence by Mr. Anderson in his Introduction. Forget the very beginning about the asterisk, and proceed to “the piece appeared in…”:
“When an asterisk appears at the end of an entry, it means that the piece appeared in the Out-Of-Town edition of The New Yorker; from Oct. 5, 1929 to April 2, 1960, the magazine published both a New York edition and an Out-Of-Town edition, and the page numbering was not always the same.”
A-Ha! Well, who knew? Actually, I knew who knew, but I couldn’t ask her last year as she passed away in April of 2001. It took a 43 year old reference book to tap into her knowledge. Helen Stark was The New Yorker‘s librarian back in those days. Mr. Anderson thanks her for “granting me access to The New Yorker’s library, and furnishing me with needed information.”
Here’s the piece from March 1, 2020:
A Sunday Puzzler
Going through one of our bound volumes of The New Yorker (the issues of February 22, 1936 – May 16, 1936), and looking specifically at the issue of March 14, 1936, I came across a few missing pages — the bound copy jumped from page 36 to 41. Curious as to what pages were removed I went to the online digital New Yorker archives, found the issue, and began “flipping” through the pages til I came across page 36, it’s headed by Lois Long’s column Tables For Two. Here’s where the puzzle begins. The digital issue has Tables For Two on page 42, not page 36 –and as you see below, the ads are different.
Here’s the bound page on the left (partial of course, so we can focus on the page #) and the digital page on the right.
Here’s a further puzzle: the two issues are different lengths — have different #s of pages: the bound copy has 76 pages, the digital issue has 88. I went to a different issue, randomly selecting April 11, 1936: and there too is a huge discrepancy in page #s. The bound issue has 80 pages; the digital issue has 96. There are a number of pieces (as with Tables For Two) appearing on different pages. In some cases, ads (such as we see above) differ.
I did do a cartoon-by-cartoon comparison for the April 11th issue (print version & digital): all are present and accounted for in each issue (the page numbers differ for some, of course; the Hokinson on page 56 in the print copy appears on page 72 in the digital issue). What is missing will have to wait for another time. I’m not one who enjoys solving puzzles, so I didn’t try to sort out what is missing from the shorter issue(s). If anyone out there has an explanation as to why (what we would assume to be) identical issues are not identical, I’d love to hear from you ( the only time I’ve run into New Yorker editions being dissimilar are the the Armed Forces issues — the so-called “Pony” issues* — but they appeared years later, and are really in their own category).
For now, my concept of an issue of The New Yorker as one piece — a standard weekly issue identical from week-to-week, is taking a small hit.
*On a personal note, Ms. Stark granted this cartoonist “access” to The New Yorker’s library back in the late 1970s after I requested a visit. When I walked into the library, she handed me a pad of paper, and a pencil, then directed me to a small desk near a cage. I say “cage” because the books were in what looked like an old fashioned wire mesh cage for a very large animal. I was visiting the magazine’s library to fill in my list of New Yorker cartoon books. I’d heard that the magazine had a copy of every single book published by its contributors, and what better way to gather all the titles than visit the epicenter of New Yorker cartoonist collections. I’ll never forget being in the cage, and occasionally glancing in Ms. Stark’s direction. Her face was partially obscured by the piles of books and papers between us. What I could see, every time I looked over her way, was her looking back at me.