There’s a little bit of Thurber in this Thurber Thursday post, as one of his illustrations appears on The Pocket Entertainer book cover and one of his collections is mentioned later on, but the post really is about the small Summer New Yorker library I’ve put together over the years with yard sale finds and library book sales. Not
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As poetry doesn’t get enough attention on this site, I thought I’d post this great cover from the magazine’s 1935 anthology. It sits on the Spill bookshelf right between two other oddities: The New Yorker Scrapbook (published in 1931) and Our Own Baedeker From The New Yorker (published in 1947). The cover illustration — a complex fascinating piece of work
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In 1929 E.B. White spotted a drawing “of a seal on a rock looking at two far-off specks and saying, ‘Hm, explorers’” in his office-mate’s trash can (his office-mate was James Thurber). White rescued the drawing, inked it in, and sent it off to The New Yorker‘s art meeting. Rea Irvin, the magazine’s art supervisor, rejected the drawing, “drew a
Read moreImagine you’re a New Yorker reader back in 1931, and you’ve settled in with your issue of January 31. Let’s also say you’re one of the readers who looks at the cartoons first, so you’re flipping through more than taking your time browsing. By the time you’re about to turn to page 16, you’ve seen four cartoons (or “drawings” as
Read moreWhen I first began collecting just about anything with Thurber’s name and/or drawings, coming across the above vinyl album was a big big deal. Not just because it’s a very fun “objet d’Thurber,” but the design delivers more than your typical soundtrack album: when you open the gatefold sleeve you find Thurber’s The Last Flower in its entirety. The inner
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