In my current re-reading of Harrison Kinney’s massive (1,238 pages) Thurber biography, James Thurber: His Life And Times, I came across a short section devoted to Thurber’s opining, in a letter, on several cartoons in a particular issue of The New Yorker. Each time I had gone over this section in the past I wondered what issue Thurber was talking about. I decided, finally(!), to figure it out today.
Thurber’s letter to Peter DeVries, dated October 16, 1952, contains this passage about two cartoon situations he’d noticed in a recent issue:
“There is too much stuff about the man and woman on the raft and the two beachcombers. The first should’ve ended twelve years ago…and I thought I ended the other one in The Ohio State Sundial in 1917 with:
1st beachcomber: “What did you come here to forget?”
2nd beachcomber: “I’ve forgotten.”
Knowing the date of Thurber’s letter to DeVries, it was just a matter of looking through issues from the Fall of 1952. All I needed was a raft cartoon and a beachcomber cartoon to show up in one issue — sort of like (I imagine) working a slot machine and hoping for matching cherries to appear. I began with the issue of October 4, 1952. No cherries. October 11. ditto. Bells began to ring when I looked through the issue of October 18th.*
There’s a Bernard Wiseman cartoon of a man and woman on a desert island, not a raft, and a Peter Arno drawing of two beachcombers. I’m committing to the belief that Thurber’s “raft” was likely interchangeable with “island.”
It’s interesting, I suppose, that the stranded man and woman cartoon situation (be it on a desert island or much less frequently these days, a raft) has survived whereas beachcomber drawings have vanished. What’s that all about?
*Keep in mind that magazines are dated ahead of when they actually appear on the newsstand. Thus the October 18th issue would’ve been out before Thurber’s letter to DeVries was written on the 16th.
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A-Zs for Wiseman, Arno, and Thurber
Bernard Wiseman New Yorker work: April 19, 1947 – June 11. 1960. 197 Drawings.
Peter Arno Born Curtis Arnoux Peters, Jr., January 8, 1904, New York City. Died February 22, 1968, Port Chester, NY. New Yorker work: 1925 -1968. Key collection: Ladies & Gentlemen (Simon & Schuster, 1951) The Foreword is by Arno. For far more on Arno please check out my biography of him, Peter Arno: The Mad Mad World of The New Yorker’s Greatest Cartoonist (Regan Arts, 2016).
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