Latest Addition To The Spill Library: Is Sex Necessary — The 21st Anniversary Edition
Hot on the heels of bringing home a modern edition (if you consider 1990 modern) of Is Sex Necessary, I came across a very reasonably priced 1950 “Coming Of Age” edition (hardcover), celebrating the book’s 21st anniversary. One has to wonder if this odd anniversary celebration had anything to do with The New Yorker‘s 25th anniversary, also celebrated in 1950. Maybe? Maybe not?
Whatever the reason, this edition needed to be added to the Spill library (finally!) because E.B. White wrote a new (new in 1950) introduction for it…and he enlisted Thurber to help out with a few paragraphs.*
A small sample of White’s 1950 intro:
“For me this book contains two things that make it all seem worthwhile: it contains a few of the finest of the early Thurber drawings, and it contains the chapter (written by Thurber) on ‘The Nature of the American Male.'”
White went on to praise “The Nature of the American Male” by writing “there just isn’t anything like it in American humor.”
This 1950 edition now joins its fellow editions on the shelf. Below are some of them. From the top left, going clockwise: the 1929 edition; the 1950 hardcover; the 1950 paperback; the 1964 paperback; the 1975 paperback; the 1977 paperback.
*White’s 1950 introduction appears in later editions of the book, including the aforementioned 1990 paperback.
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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