On this extremely warm Thurber Thursday I was driven (well, I drove myself) to the Spill’s collection of New Yorker Albums (of drawings, or if you’re feeling more contemporary casual, cartoons). It occurred to me this morning that I did not know which Album contained the first Thurber appearance.
You might think it appeared in the 1st album, simply titled The New Yorker Album published in 1928 (now coveted by collectors, of course). If not that one, then surely his work appeared in the Second Album (published in 1929). If not the Second Album then most definitely in The Third New Yorker Album (published in 1930). Well, you’d be wrong, wrong, wrong if you guessed any of those three. Just as I was wrong just now as I went to the Third Album and found it wanting in Thurber.
The key to understanding his absence is being aware of the pub dates of every Album as well as when Thurber’s very first drawing appeared in the magazine: January 31, 1931.
Sidenote: his writing first appeared in the issue of February 26, 1927.
As the Third Album was published in 1930, there were no New Yorker Thurber drawings to include. So that leaves the next anthology in the series: 1931’s Fourth New Yorker Album, and Thurber’s very first appearance shown here.
Thurber’s in illustrious company. His neighbors are, clockwise from upper left: W.C. Galbraith, Julian de Miskey, and Alan Dunn.
Below is a close-up of the Thurber. It was Thurber’s second New Yorker drawing (published in the issue of February 14, 1931). In all, five Thurber’s of his twenty-three published in 1931 appeared in the Fourth Album.
