Thurber Illustrates In A Word…Three Ads This fun book by Margaret Ernst, originally published in 1939, contained sixty-three Thurber drawings (drawn specifically for Ernst’s book). In other words (no pun) it’s essential for any Thurber library. To promote the book, the publisher ran ads in three consecutive issues of The New Yorker, beginning with the issue of September 16, 1939.
Read more
When we think about The New Yorker’s early years and its marquee personalities, John Mosher’s name doesn’t come up very often, if at all. And yet, he was the person who, in Katharine White’s words, “discovered” James Thurber. Mosher’s work at The New Yorker included reading unsolicited manuscripts (he was also the magazine’s first regularly assigned film critic). It was
Read more
“What Do You Think About This Caption?” There are enough Thurber books around to keep me re-reading til the lights go out. Harrison Kinney’s James Thurber: His Life and Times is just about at the top of my re-read list, although Burton Bernstein’s 1975 Thurber: a Biography is dearer to me. It was my first introduction to a Thurber biography,
Read more
From Michael Rosen’s Thurber files, this quote from what I believe to be a Book Of The Month Club newsletter article by Wolcott Gibbs. Here’s Gibbs talking about Thurber transitioning from a managing editor position at The New Yorker to a Talk of the Town rewrite editor: “I think in the end Thurber fired himself as an editor…and began to
Read more