If you happen to in Columbus, Ohio, pencil in this must-see site: The Thurber House. I’ve been there twice, along with my New Yorker colleague, Liza Donnelly. Here’s a short, succinct video tour.
Link here to the Thurber House website.
Thurber’s entry on the Spill’s A-Z:
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. A recent must-have for your Thurber library: Michael Rosen’s, A Mile And A Half Of Lines: The Art Of James Thurber (The Ohio State University Press, 2019)