I can’t be in Maine without thinking of the Whites, E.B. and Katharine (and Roger Angell of course). On our yearly long drive up here we pass through Ellsworth, one of the “big towns” close to Brooklin where the White’s saltwater farm is located. Anyone who has read White’s classic collection of essays, One Man’s Meat will come across
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Finding Freddie Packard The “spot” drawings you see above were drawn by Freddie Packard, who began working at The New Yorker in 1929 — he passed away in November of 1974, at age 71 (one of his “spot” drawings appeared in the issue of November 4, 1974). The “spots” were just one of the feathers in Mr. Packard’s New Yorker
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Three Book Ads Here’s a trio of ads I ran across this morning while having a fun breeze through of some late 1970s, early 1980s New Yorkers.* Seeing the Steig book ad, I’d forgotten the Lillian Ross intro — I’m inspired to dig the book out of the Spill library and see what Ms. Ross had to say about
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The very first issue of The New Yorker (shown here) was dated February 21, 1925 — exactly 96 years ago today. Many years back while reading Dale Kramer’s Ross And The New Yorker (Doubleday, 1951)* I came across this passage on page 64, talking about that first issue’s cover: “The most inviting feature of the first issue came about by
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