Dorothy Parker delivered a most memorable introduction to James Thurber’s The Seal In The Bedroom And Other Predicaments (originally published in 1932). For me, she captured, as best as anyone, the Thurber zeitgeist.
Here are three key moments from her introduction:
“Mr. James Thurber, our hero, deals solely in culminations. Beneath his pictures he sets only the final line. You may figure for yourself, and good luck to you, what under heaven could have gone before, that his somber citizens find themselves in such remarkable situations.”
And this section, with its pure gold description of Thurber’s drawings:
“These are strange people that Mr. Thurber has turned loose upon us. They seem to fall into three classes—the playful, the defeated, and the ferocious. All of them have the outer semblance of unbaked cookies…”
and finally:
“Of the birds and animals so bewilderingly woven into the lives of the Thurber people it is best to say but little. Those tender puppies, those fainthearted hounds—I think they are hounds—that despondent penguin—one goes all weak with sentiment. No man could have drawn, much less thought of, those creatures unless he felt really right about animals.”
To read the entire introduction, go here.