— the following is excerpted from my as yet unpublished memoir Lightning Strikes, Thurber-Style On a summer’s day in 1972, when I was eighteen turning nineteen, I was in my rented room of a Victorian home in Cape May, New Jersey, when a fellow renter, and a friend, Matthew, walked in, laughing hysterically. He held a copy of James
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Yesterday, after the last of the egg nog was polished off, I gave some thought to James Thurber, Thurber Thursday, and Thurber and Christmastime. I could only think of a handful Thurber-related Christmas-related pieces (I’m betting there are more!): An ad for the Franklin Simon department store. Four Christmas cards from his pre-New Yorker days (you can see them
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Die Letzte Blume Yet another foreign edition of a Thurber title is now in the Spill library. Die Letzte Blume, published in June of 1953, is a German version of Thurber’s classic, The Last Flower. This slim paperback also includes Fables For Our Time. The German edition (shown below) is one of the very few times the cover in no
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The After-Shave Club Who knew! Once upon a time, long ago, there was an after-shave club (at least in the minds of ad folks). Here’s an ad showing a drawing by New Yorker artist and club member, Alajalov. As you see in the copy, James Thurber lent his name to Aqua Velva’s campaign. One didn’t need to do anything but
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