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 way resembles The Last Flower cover we’ve come to know (to the left) showing a Thurber man and women, on their knees, nurturing a single flower that survived war.
Below, on the left: the front cover. To the right: the back cover.
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These pages appear at the end of the book. Despite taking a handful of German language courses in high school, my German has always been rusty, so I’m at a loss as to what is being said here:
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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