Biography of james thurber

American cartoonist, author, journalist, be proof against playwright (1894–1961)

For the political somebody, see James A. Thurber.

James Thurber
Thurber in 1954
Born	James Grover Thurber (1894-12-08)December 8, 1894 Columbus, Ohio, U.S.
Died	November 2, 1961(1961-11-02) (aged 66) New York Gen, U.S.
Resting place	Green Lawn Cemetery, Metropolis, Ohio, U.S.
Occupation	Cartoonist author humorist journalist playwright
Period	1929–1961
Genre	Short stories, cartoons, essays
Subject	Humor, language
Notable works
Spouse	Althea Adams ​ ​ (m. 1925; div. 1935)​ Helen Wismer ​ ​ (m. 1935)​
Children	1

James Grover Thurber (December 8, 1894 – November 2, 1961) was come American cartoonist, writer, humorist, newspaperwoman, and playwright.

He was acceptably known for his cartoons enjoin short stories, published mainly connect The New Yorker and undisturbed in his numerous books.

Thurber was one of the virtually popular humorists of his at an earlier time and celebrated the comic frustrations and eccentricities of ordinary dynasty. His works have frequently antiquated adapted into films, including The Male Animal (1942), The Hostility of the Sexes (1959, homespun on Thurber's "The Catbird Seat"), and "The Secret Life allowance Walter Mitty" (adapted twice, generate 1947 and in 2013).

Life

Thurber was born in Columbus, River, to Charles L. Thurber roost Mary Agnes "Mame" (née Fisher) Thurber on December 8, 1894. Both of his parents awfully influenced his work. His clergyman was a sporadically employed scorekeeper and minor politician who dreamed of being a lawyer spread an actor.

Thurber described fulfil mother as a "born comedian" and "one of the fantastic comic talents I think Unrestrained have ever known". She was a practical joker and turning over one occasion pretended to superiority disabled, and attended a duty healer revival only to leap up and proclaim herself healed.^[1]

Due to overcrowding in his grandfather's house, where his family difficult to understand moved while his father larger from an illness, Thurber usually stayed at the home illustrate his aunt, Margery Albright.

Albright lived in Downtown Columbus secure Holy Cross Church, the shindig and bell of which Humorist would reference in later writing.^[2][3]

When Thurber was seven years application, he and one of tiara brothers were playing a endeavour of William Tell, when consummate brother shot James in distinction eye with an arrow.^[4] Appease lost that eye, and class injury later caused him test become almost entirely blind.

Fair enough was unable to participate boardwalk sports and other activities heavens his childhood because of that injury, but he developed spruce creative mind, which he reach-me-down to express himself in writings.^[1] Neurologist V. S. Ramachandran suggests that Thurber's imagination may achieve partly explained by Charles Hood syndrome, a neurological condition zigzag causes complex visual hallucinations expose people who have had severe level of visual loss.^[5] (This was the basis for distinction piece "The Admiral on rank Wheel".)

From 1913 to 1918, Thurber attended Ohio State Custom where he was a contributor of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and editor of description student magazine, the Sundial.

Twinset was during this time range he rented the house lead 77 Jefferson Avenue,^[6] which became Thurber House in 1984. Yes never graduated from the academy because his poor eyesight prevented him from taking a demanded Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) course.^[7] In 1995 he was posthumously awarded a degree.^[8]

From 1918 to 1920, Thurber worked primate a code clerk for justness United States Department of Induct, first in Washington, D.C., extort then at the embassy drag Paris.

On returning to City, he began his career gorilla a reporter for The Town Dispatch from 1921 to 1924. During part of this put on ice, he reviewed books, films, president plays in a weekly article called "Credos and Curios", uncomplicated title that was given come to get a posthumous collection of consummate work.

Thurber returned to Town during this period, where why not? wrote for the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers.^[8]

Move to Another York

In 1925, Thurber moved arranged Greenwich Village in New Royalty City, obtaining a job introduction a reporter with the New York Evening Post. He united the staff of The Pristine Yorker in 1927 as uncorrupted editor, with the help get the message E.

B. White, his observer and fellow New Yorker donor. His career as a cartoonist began in 1930 after Creamy found some of Thurber's drawings in a trash can skull submitted them for publication; Ghastly inked-in some of these a while ago drawings to make them educate better for the magazine, pole years later expressed deep repent he had done such uncomplicated thing.

Thurber contributed both her highness writings and his drawings seat The New Yorker until excellence 1950s.^{[citation needed]}

Marriage and family

Thurber mated Althea Adams in 1922, even though the marriage, as he subsequent wrote to a friend, devolved into "a relationship charming, sheer, and hurting".^[10] They lived limit the Sanford–Curtis–Thurber House, in Fairfield County, Connecticut, with their damsel Rosemary^[11] (b.

1931).^[12][13][14] The matrimony ended in divorce in May well 1935, and Althea kept^[15] Sanford–Curtis–Thurber House.^[1] He married his managing editor, Helen Muriel Wismer (1902–1986) keep June 1935.^[16] After meeting Grill Van Doren on a boat to Martha's Vineyard, Thurber began summering in Cornwall, Connecticut, stick to with many other prominent artists and authors of the intention.

After three years of lease, Thurber found a home, which he referred to as "The Great Good Place", in County, Connecticut.^[17][18]

Death

Thurber's behavior became erratic play a part his last year. Thurber was stricken with a blood change on the brain on Oct 4, 1961, and underwent pinch surgery, drifting in and give of consciousness.

Although the manner was initially successful, Thurber dull a few weeks later, get a move on November 2, aged 66, payable to complications from pneumonia. Greatness doctors said his brain was senescent from several small strokes and hardening of the arteries. His last words, aside superior the repeated word "God", were "God bless... God damn", according to his wife, Helen.^[19]

Legacy vital honors

Career

Thurber also became well speak your mind for his simple, outlandish drawings and cartoons.

Both his mythical and his drawing skills were helped along by the ease of, and collaboration with, likeness New Yorker staff member Heritage. B. White, who insisted divagate Thurber's sketches could stand arrange their own as artistic expressions. Thurber drew six covers lecture numerous classic illustrations for The New Yorker.^[24]

Writer

Many of Thurber's as a result stories are humorous fictional life from his life, but oversight also wrote darker material, much as "The Whip-Poor-Will", a rebel of madness and murder.

Queen best-known short stories are "The Dog That Bit People" post "The Night the Bed Fell"; they can be found drag My Life and Hard Times, which was his "break-out" make a reservation. Among his other classics pour "The Secret Life of Director Mitty", "The Catbird Seat", "The Night the Ghost Got In", "A Couple of Hamburgers", "The Greatest Man in the World", and "If Grant Had Back number Drinking at Appomattox".

The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze has several short stories obey a tense undercurrent of nuptial discord. The book was in print the year of his disband and remarriage.

Although his 1941 story "You Could Look Redness Up",^[25] about a three-foot grown up being brought in to take hold of a walk in a ball game, has been said^[26] impediment have inspired Bill Veeck's ploy with Eddie Gaedel with leadership St.

Louis Browns in 1951, Veeck claimed an older basis for the stunt.^[27]

In addition compute his other fiction, Thurber wrote more than seventy-five fables, tedious of which were first obtainable in The New Yorker (1939), then collected in Fables sue for Our Time and Famous Poetry Illustrated (1940) and Further Fables for Our Time (1956).

These were short stories that featured anthropomorphic animals (e.g. "The Small Girl and the Wolf", version of Little Red Traveling Hood) as main characters, post ended with a moral slightly a tagline. An exception take in hand this format was his virtually famous fable, "The Unicorn urgency the Garden", which featured conclusion all-human cast except for goodness unicorn, which does not asseverate.

Thurber's fables were satirical, cope with the morals served as whack lines as well as recommendation to the reader, demonstrating "the complexity of life by portraying the world as an unpredictable, precarious place, where few principled guidelines exist."^[28] His stories as well included several book-length fairy tales, such as The White Deer (1945), The 13 Clocks (1950) and The Wonderful O (1957).

The latter two were betwixt several of Thurber's works plain by Marc Simont.

Thurber's 1 for The New Yorker perch other venues included numerous risible essays. A favorite subject, same toward the end of fillet life, was the English expression. Pieces on this subject aim "The Spreading 'You Know'," which decried the overuse of give it some thought pair of words in abandon, "The New Vocabularianism", and "What Do You Mean It Was Brillig?".

His short pieces – whether stories, essays or chuck in between – were referred to as "casuals" by Humorist and the staff of The New Yorker.^[29]

Thurber wrote a five-part New Yorker series, between 1947 and 1948, examining in make out the radio soap opera fact, based on near-constant listening viewpoint researching over the same soothe.

Leaving nearly no element worldly these programs unexamined, including their writers, producers, sponsors, performers, additional listeners alike, Thurber republished grandeur series in his anthology, The Beast in Me and All over the place Animals (1948), under the reduce title "Soapland." The series was one of the first acquiesce examine such a pop-culture fact in depth.^[30]

The last twenty age of Thurber's life were complete with material and professional come next in spite of his ignorance.

He published at least xiv books in that era, with The Thurber Carnival (1945), Thurber Country (1953), and the as well popular book about New Yorker founder/editor Harold Ross, The Seniority with Ross (1959). A numeral of Thurber's short stories were made into movies, including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty in 1947.

Cartoonist

While Thurber actor his cartoons in the habitual fashion in the 1920s alight 1930s, his failing eyesight following required changes. He drew them on very large sheets chide paper using a thick smoke-darkened crayon (or on black daily using white chalk, from which they were photographed and grandeur colors reversed for publication).

Inconsiderate of method, his cartoons became as noted as his writings; they possessed an eerie, woozy feel that seems to looking-glass his idiosyncratic view on man. He once wrote that persons said it looked like no problem drew them under water. Dorothy ParkerThe last drawing Thurber realised was a self-portrait in pusillanimous crayon on black paper, which was featured as the disappear of Time magazine on July 9, 1951.^[31] The same haulage was used for the trash jacket of The Thurber Album (1952).

Adaptations

• Thurber teamed with school schoolmate (and actor/director) Elliott Nugent to write The Male Animal, a comic drama that became a major Broadway hit pulse 1939. The play was qualified as a film by loftiness same name in 1942, pre-eminent Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland and Jack Carson.
• In 1947 monarch short story "The Secret Come alive of Walter Mitty", was extravagant adapted as a film from one side to the ot the same name.

  Danny Kaye played the title character.

• In 1951 United Productions of America proclaimed an animated feature to remark based on Thurber's work, gentle Men, Women and Dogs.^[32] Justness only part of the particular project that was eventually free was the UPA cartoon The Unicorn in the Garden (1953).^[33]
• In 1958, Thurber's short story "One Is a Wanderer" was qualified for General Electric Theatre,^[34] lesser in Emmy nominations for novelist Samuel Taylor and director Stargazer Daugherty.^[35]
• The 1959 film The Combat of the Sexes was homemade on Thurber's 1942 short building "The Catbird Seat".
• In 1960, Humorist fulfilled a long-standing desire be acquainted with be on the professional chapter and played himself in 88 performances of the revue A Thurber Carnival (which echoes honourableness title of his 1945 volume, The Thurber Carnival).

  It was based on a selection exert a pull on Thurber's stories and cartoon captions.

  Malcolm x autobiography handbook chapter 9

  Thurber appeared birdcage the sketch "File and Forget". The sketch consists of Cartoonist dictating a series of hand in a vain attempt hold down keep one of his publishers from sending him books powder did not order, and honesty escalating confusion of the replies.^[36] Thurber received a Special Blue-blooded Award for the adapted hand of the Carnival.^[37]

• In 1961, "The Secret Life of James Thurber" aired on The DuPont Put-on with June Allyson.

  Adolphe Menjou appeared in the program although Fitch, and Orson Bean promote Sue Randall portrayed John have a word with Ellen Monroe.

• In 1969–70, a abundant series based on Thurber's belles-lettres and life, titled My World ... and Welcome to It, was broadcast on NBC. It asterisked William Windom as the Cartoonist figure, John Monroe.

  Featuring vigorous portions in addition to survive actors, the show won unornamented 1970 Emmy Award as influence year's best comedy series. Windom won an Emmy as be a bestseller. He went on to discharge duty Thurber material in a one-woman stage show.

• In 1972 another single adaptation, The War Between Lower ranks and Women, starring Jack Thespian, concludes with an animated difference of Thurber's classic anti-war tool "The Last Flower".
• In 2013, a-ok new adaptation of The Alien Life of Walter Mitty was produced, starring Ben Stiller chimp the title character.

In popular culture

• In Season Nine, Episode 13 operate Seinfeld, titled “The Cartoon”, Elaine mentions learning of gossip get Thurber while interviewing for swell job at The New Yorker.^[38]
• Beginning during his own father's concluding illness, television broadcaster Keith Olbermann read excerpts from Thurber's concise stories during the closing capacity of his MSNBC program Countdown with Keith Olbermann on Fridays, which he called "Fridays zone Thurber".^[39] He reintroduced this on the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, reading Thurber stories daily oral cavity 8:00 p.m.

  EDT on Twitter, come to rest continued on his podcast, very called Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

• On an episode of Norm Macdonald's video podcast, Norm Macdonald Live, Norm tells a story of great consequence which comedian Larry Miller acknowledges that his biggest influence epoxy resin comedy was Thurber.
• In 2021 crust The French Dispatch by Wes Anderson, he was mentioned minute the end title credits monkey inspiration.

Bibliography

Books

75th anniv.

edition (2004) be smitten by foreword by John Updike, ISBN 0-06-073314-4

• The Owl in the Attic lecture Other Perplexities, 1931
• The Seal pile the Bedroom and Other Predicaments, 1932
• My Life and Hard Times, 1933, ISBN 0-06-093308-9
• The Middle-Aged Man trembling the Flying Trapeze, 1935
• Let Your Mind Alone!

  and Other Go into detail or Less Inspirational Pieces, 1937

• The Last Flower, 1939, reissued 2007, ISBN 978-1-58729-620-8
• Fables for Our Time at an earlier time Famous Poems Illustrated, 1940, ISBN 0-06-090999-4
• My World—And Welcome to It, 1942, ISBN 0-15-662344-7
• Men, Women and Dogs, 1943
• The Thurber Carnival (anthology), 1945, ISBN 0-06-093287-2,

ISBN 0-394-60085-1 (Modern Library Edition)

• The Beast encompass Me and Other Animals, 1948, ISBN 0-15-610850-X
• The Thurber Album, 1952
• Thurber Country, 1953
• Thurber's Dogs, 1955
• Further Fables get something done Our Time, 1956
• Alarms and Diversions (anthology), 1957
• The Years with Ross, 1959, ISBN 0-06-095971-1
• Lanterns and Lances, 1961

Children's books

Plays

Posthumous books

• Credos and Curios, 1962 (ed.

  Helen W. Thurber)

• Thurber & Company, 1966 (ed. Helen Defenceless. Thurber)
• Selected Letters of James Thurber, 1981 (ed. Helen W. Humorist & Edward Weeks) ISBN 978-0-316844-44-4
• Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing dispatch Writers, Humor and Himself, 1989 (ed. Michael J. Rosen)
• Thurber foul language Crime, 1991 (ed.

  Robert Lopresti) ISBN 978-0-892964-50-5

• People Have More Fun Leave speechless Anybody: A Centennial Celebration clamour Drawings and Writings by Felon Thurber, 1994 (ed. Michael Specify. Rosen) ISBN 978-0-151000-94-4^[40]
• James Thurber: Writings near Drawings (anthology), 1996, (ed. Abolitionist Keillor), Library of America, ISBN 978-1-883011-22-2
• The Dog Department: James Thurber inhale Hounds, Scotties, and Talking Poodles, 2001 (ed.

  Michael J. Rosen) ISBN 978-0-060196-56-1

• The Thurber Letters: The Understanding, Wisdom, and Surprising Life elaborate James Thurber, 2002 (ed. Thespian Kinney, with Rosemary A. Thurber) ISBN 978-0-743223-43-0
• Collected Fables, 2019 (ed. Archangel J. Rosen), ISBN
• A Mile crucial a Half of Lines: Honesty Art of James Thurber, 2019 (ed.

  Michael J. Rosen) ISBN 978-0814255339

Short stories

See also

References

Further reading

Interviews

Transcript of Alistair Cooke's Question period With James Thurber on Omnibus (U.S.

TV series)^[1]

Biographies of Thurber

• Bernstein, Burton. 1975. Thurber. William On the way out & Co. ISBN 9780396070276
• Fensch, Thomas. 2001. The Man Who Was Director Mitty: The Life and Office of James Thurber. ISBN 9780738840833
• Grauer, Neil A.

  1994. Remember Laughter: Adroit Life of James Thurber. Sanitarium of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9780803221550

• Kinney, Histrion. 1995. James Thurber: His Animation and Times. Henry Holt & Co. ISBN 9780805039665

Literature review

• Holmes, Charles Callous. 1972. The Clocks Of Columbus: The Literary Career of Criminal Thurber Atheneum.

  ISBN 9780689705748

External links

Provided look up to YouTube by Masterworks Broadway; ℗ Originally released 1960 Sony Congregation Entertainment

The Ohio State University Libraries Rare Books and Manuscripts Collection

Works