An Uncollected Thurber Piece (w/Drawings)
I recently pulled a small paperback, the August 1937 For Men — and Men Only, out of a collection of cartoon books generously donated to the Spill, and immediately spied Thurber’s name at the bottom. Inside is a Thurber piece titled, Let Psychologists Alone.
I’ve no idea how unusual it is to run across a Thurber piece from his peak years that has not been collected in one of his books. It’s entirely possible that “Let Psychologists Alone” has been collected somewhere, but I’ve yet to discover where that would be [if anyone knows, please let me know].
Edwin Bowden’s indispensable James Thurber: A Bibliography lists its only appearance in For Men — and Men Only. I looked through the posthumous collections (Thurber & Company, Collecting Himself, and People Have More Fun Than Anybody) and did not find it.
In addition to the piece itself are four accompanying drawings (or illustrations as Bowden refers to them). I’m showing you one here: a lovely drawing of a Thurber man about to toss a baseball.
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By the way, the cartoonists in the issue are:
Of those, d’Alessio, Beaven, von Riegen, Berry, Shellhase, and Ruge were all New Yorker contributors.
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Thurber’s A-Z Entry:
James Thurber Born, Columbus, Ohio, December 8, 1894. Died 1961, New York City. New Yorker work: 1927 -1961, with several pieces run posthumously. According to the New Yorker’s legendary editor, William Shawn, “In the early days, a small company of writers, artists, and editors — E.B. White, James Thurber, Peter Arno, and Katharine White among them — did more to make the magazine what it is than can be measured.”
Key cartoon collection: The Seal in the Bedroom and Other Predicaments (Harper & Bros., 1932). Key anthology (writings & drawings): The Thurber Carnival (Harper & Row, 1945). There have been a number of Thurber biographies. Burton Bernstein’s Thurber (Dodd, Mead, 1975) and Harrison Kinney’s James Thurber: His Life and Times (Henry Holt & Co., 1995) are essential. Website