Thurber Thursday: Both Sides

Thanks to the enormous generosity of a very good friend of the Spill, our Thurber original collection doubled in size recently, from one drawing to two — or has it tripled to three? The piece is unusual in that both sides contain original Thurber drawings.  

As you can see there’s an issue date on the piece: Aug 26,1939. Here’s how the rabbits look in that issue of The New Yorker. 

Next Thursday I’ll show how the drawings on the reverse look in an earlier issue of The New Yorker. The drawing is framed floating between two sheets of glass, so one can flip the frame to see both sides of the piece. It’s the rabbit side that is usually facing out. Stepping up close to them each morning and taking them in for a few moments never fails to kick start the day around here. 

Interesting to note that when this fable (“The Rabbits Who Caused All The Trouble”) appeared the next year in the book, Fables For Our Time, a different version of the drawing appeared:

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James 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

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And…If you enjoy looking at original drawings such as the rabbits at top of this post, I highly recommend seeking out Michael Rosen’s wonderful A Mile and a Half Of Lines: The Art Of James Thurber (The Ohio State University Press, 2019)*.

*Full disclosure: this cartoonist contributed to the book.