As I’ve leisurely made my way through decades of the earliest back issues of The New Yorker I’ve come across a number of things I never cataloged before. Below are three full page ads featuring Thurber art for the play “Rain From Heaven”— it doesn’t appear that Thurber had anything to do with the play other than contributing these illustrations (someone please correct me if I’m wrong). The ads appear here in order of their publication: January 26, 1935; February 2, 1935; February 9, 1935.
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A Reminder: The awards ceremony for The Thurber Prize For American Humor is returning to New York City this year. It was announced on March 13th that Paul Noth is the 2025 recipient of the Thurber Prize for American Humor In Cartoon Art. All the information here about the event.
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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