Latest Addition To The Spill Library…A 1937 New Yorker Bound Volume With Tilley’s Farewell
Occasionally I’ll buy a New Yorker bound volume even though some of the issues within the volume are already in the Spill library. The idea of sitting with a book has always been more enjoyable (for me) than with a single issue. Both are fun and all that, but one is just a bit more fun. When I saw the above volume, Aug.7, 1937 – Sept. 25, 1937 show up on Ebay I knew I’d be doubling up issues (even tripling the earliest August issues). When it comes to book v. magazine, book usually wins.
The Talk Of The Town in very first issue (August 7, 1937) of the volume contains E.B. White’s farewell to writing the magazine’s Notes and Comment and to The New Yorker (he didn’t actually leave the nest for good). White handled the piece as if it was written by reporter visiting Eustace Tilley, who was in the midst of packing up and leaving the city. Otto Soglow’s drawing accompanying the piece is below:
You can find this drawing, and plenty of context about this period in Scott Elledge’s terrific E.B. White: A Biography.
Also in this issue is this wonderful Thurber drawing (not a cartoon). It showed up, printed smaller than the magazine version, in Thurber’s 1943 collection, Men, Women And Dogs. :
In a later issue in the volume (September 11, ’37) is this full page W.C. Galbraith drawing, which should serve as a rebuttal to those suggesting that Harold Ross was adverse to, or prudish about showing female anatomy.
A footnote about the volume added to the library: the name Lucy Herndon Crockett is embossed in gold lettering on the cover. I looked up Ms. Crockett…quite a story!
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The Tilley Watch Online, November 27-December 1, 2023
An end of the week listing of New Yorker artists whose work has appeared on newyorker.com features
The Daily Cartoon: Peter Kuper, Akeem Roberts, Dan Misdea, Corey Pandolph, Ellis Rosen.
Daily Shouts: Liana Finck, Julia Wertz.
Barry Blitt’s Kvetchbook: “The Napoleonic Wars”