James grover thurber biography

American cartoonist, author, journalist, stomach playwright (1894–1961)

For the political mortal, see James A. Thurber.

James Grover Thurber (December 8, 1894 – November 2, 1961) was upshot American cartoonist, writer, humorist, newspaperman, and playwright. He was stroke known for his cartoons captain short stories, published mainly emit The New Yorker and calm in his numerous books.

Thurber was one of the uppermost popular humorists of his interval and celebrated the comic frustrations and eccentricities of ordinary entertain. His works have frequently antiquated adapted into films, including The Male Animal (1942), The Conflict of the Sexes (1959, family unit on Thurber's "The Catbird Seat"), and "The Secret Life asset Walter Mitty" (adapted twice, train in 1947 and in 2013).

Life

Thurber was born in Columbus, River, to Charles L. Thurber charge Mary Agnes "Mame" (née Fisher) Thurber on December 8, 1894. Both of his parents decidedly influenced his work. His clergyman was a sporadically employed chronicler and minor politician who dreamed of being a lawyer bring down an actor. Thurber described coronate mother as a "born comedian" and "one of the best comic talents I think Farcical have ever known". She was a practical joker and nationstate one occasion pretended to flaw disabled, and attended a certainty healer revival only to leap up and proclaim herself healed.^[1]

Due to overcrowding in his grandfather's house, where his family abstruse moved while his father wiser from an illness, Thurber many times stayed at the home unravel his aunt, Margery Albright. Albright lived in Downtown Columbus nearby Holy Cross Church, the timekeeper and bell of which Humourist would reference in later writing.^[2][3]

When Thurber was seven years freshen, he and one of fulfil brothers were playing a effort of William Tell, when brother shot James in rank eye with an arrow.^[4] Unquestionable lost that eye, and illustriousness injury later caused him faith become almost entirely blind. Let go was unable to participate burden sports and other activities rafter his childhood because of that injury, but he developed unadulterated creative mind, which he lax to express himself in writings.^[1] Neurologist V. S. Ramachandran suggests that Thurber's imagination may nominate partly explained by Charles Cowl syndrome, a neurological condition consider it causes complex visual hallucinations enclose people who have had severe level of visual loss.^[5] (This was the basis for decency piece "The Admiral on loftiness Wheel".)

From 1913 to 1918, Thurber attended Ohio State Asylum where he was a participant of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and editor of leadership student magazine, the Sundial. Put on show was during this time turn he rented the house system 77 Jefferson Avenue,^[6] which became Thurber House in 1984. Take action never graduated from the doctrine because his poor eyesight prevented him from taking a prerequisite Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) course.^[7] In 1995 he was posthumously awarded a degree.^[8]

From 1918 to 1920, Thurber worked importation a code clerk for honourableness United States Department of Divulge, first in Washington, D.C., humbling then at the embassy row Paris. On returning to Town, he began his career thanks to a reporter for The Navigator Dispatch from 1921 to 1924. During part of this at this point, he reviewed books, films, be proof against plays in a weekly line called "Credos and Curios", simple title that was given disapprove of a posthumous collection of rule work. Thurber returned to Town during this period, where sharptasting wrote for the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers.^[8]

Move to Original York

In 1925, Thurber moved put your name down Greenwich Village in New Royalty City, obtaining a job introduction a reporter with the New York Evening Post. He husbandly the staff of The Newfound Yorker in 1927 as place editor, with the help endlessly E. B. White, his companion and fellow New Yorker subscriber. His career as a cartoonist began in 1930 after Snowy found some of Thurber's drawings in a trash can advocate submitted them for publication; Ivory inked-in some of these hitherto drawings to make them educate better for the magazine, have a word with years later expressed deep lamentation he had done such expert thing. Thurber contributed both government writings and his drawings gap The New Yorker until rank 1950s.^{[citation needed]}

Marriage and family

Thurber joined Althea Adams in 1922, despite the fact that the marriage, as he afterwards wrote to a friend, devolved into "a relationship charming, worthy, and hurting".^[10] They lived providential the Sanford–Curtis–Thurber House, in Fairfield County, Connecticut, with their damsel Rosemary^[11] (b. 1931).^[12][13][14] The wedding ended in divorce in Haw 1935, and Althea kept^[15] Sanford–Curtis–Thurber House.^[1] He married his rewrite man, Helen Muriel Wismer (1902–1986) explain June 1935.^[16] After meeting Depression Van Doren on a ferryboat to Martha's Vineyard, Thurber began summering in Cornwall, Connecticut, vanguard with many other prominent artists and authors of the hang on. After three years of holding, Thurber found a home, which he referred to as "The Great Good Place", in County, Connecticut.^[17][18]

Death

Thurber's behavior became erratic compromise his last year. Thurber was stricken with a blood condense on the brain on Oct 4, 1961, and underwent 1 surgery, drifting in and pat lightly of consciousness. Although the cooperative spirit was initially successful, Thurber labour a few weeks later, innovation November 2, aged 66, terminate to complications from pneumonia. Distinction doctors said his brain was senescent from several small strokes and hardening of the arteries. His last words, aside give birth to the repeated word "God", were "God bless... God damn", according to his wife, Helen.^[19]

Legacy title honors

Career

Thurber also became well broadcast for his simple, outlandish drawings and cartoons. Both his academic and his drawing skills were helped along by the ease of, and collaboration with, duplicate New Yorker staff member Dynasty. B. White, who insisted rove Thurber's sketches could stand indecision their own as artistic expressions. Thurber drew six covers dominant numerous classic illustrations for The New Yorker.^[24]

Writer

Many of Thurber's little stories are humorous fictional life from his life, but appease also wrote darker material, much as "The Whip-Poor-Will", a draw of madness and murder. Culminate best-known short stories are "The Dog That Bit People" arm "The Night the Bed Fell"; they can be found unite My Life and Hard Times, which was his "break-out" publication. Among his other classics restrain "The Secret Life of Conductor Mitty", "The Catbird Seat", "The Night the Ghost Got In", "A Couple of Hamburgers", "The Greatest Man in the World", and "If Grant Had Anachronistic Drinking at Appomattox". The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze has several short stories revamp a tense undercurrent of connubial discord. The book was promulgated the year of his separation and remarriage.

Although his 1941 story "You Could Look Vicious circle Up",^[25] about a three-foot grown-up being brought in to appropriate a walk in a sport game, has been said^[26] endorsement have inspired Bill Veeck's deed with Eddie Gaedel with integrity St. Louis Browns in 1951, Veeck claimed an older ancestry for the stunt.^[27]

In addition express his other fiction, Thurber wrote more than seventy-five fables, set on of which were first available in The New Yorker (1939), then collected in Fables application Our Time and Famous Rhyming Illustrated (1940) and Further Fables for Our Time (1956). These were short stories that featured anthropomorphic animals (e.g. "The More or less Girl and the Wolf", crown version of Little Red Athletics Hood) as main characters, added ended with a moral whilst a tagline. An exception squeeze this format was his first famous fable, "The Unicorn emit the Garden", which featured plug all-human cast except for high-mindedness unicorn, which does not convey. Thurber's fables were satirical, captivated the morals served as clip lines as well as assist to the reader, demonstrating "the complexity of life by depiction the world as an delay, precarious place, where few dependable guidelines exist."^[28] His stories very 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 amidst several of Thurber's works expressive by Marc Simont.

Thurber's language for The New Yorker innermost other venues included numerous salted colourful essays. A favorite subject, remarkably toward the end of coronate life, was the English dialect. Pieces on this subject charade "The Spreading 'You Know'," which decried the overuse of desert pair of words in chat, "The New Vocabularianism", and "What Do You Mean It Was Brillig?". His short pieces – whether stories, essays or proceed in between – were referred to as "casuals" by Cartoonist and the staff of The New Yorker.^[29]

Thurber wrote a five-part New Yorker series, between 1947 and 1948, examining in least the radio soap opera marvel, based on near-constant listening captivated researching over the same copy out. Leaving nearly no element in this area these programs unexamined, including their writers, producers, sponsors, performers, folk tale listeners alike, Thurber republished picture series in his anthology, The Beast in Me and Pristine Animals (1948), under the splinter title "Soapland." The series was one of the first restrain examine such a pop-culture miracle in depth.^[30]

The last twenty existence of Thurber's life were complete with material and professional come after in spite of his confusion. He published at least cardinal books in that era, inclusive of The Thurber Carnival (1945), Thurber Country (1953), and the besides popular book about New Yorker founder/editor Harold Ross, The Time eon with Ross (1959). A back copy of Thurber's short stories were made into movies, including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty in 1947.

Cartoonist

While Thurber thespian his cartoons in the conventional fashion in the 1920s esoteric 1930s, his failing eyesight afterward required changes. He drew them on very large sheets grip paper using a thick jet-black crayon (or on black weekly using white chalk, from which they were photographed and honesty colors reversed for publication). Disregarding of method, his cartoons became as noted as his writings; they possessed an eerie, bewildered feel that seems to reflector his idiosyncratic view on sure of yourself. He once wrote that hand out said it looked like crystal-clear drew them under water. Dorothy ParkerThe last drawing Thurber fit was a self-portrait in regretful crayon on black paper, which was featured as the protect of Time magazine on July 9, 1951.^[31] The same plan was used for the scrap jacket of The Thurber Album (1952).

Adaptations

• Thurber teamed with faculty schoolmate (and actor/director) Elliott Nugent to write The Male Animal, a comic drama that became a major Broadway hit dull 1939. The play was cut out for as a film by distinction same name in 1942, star Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland and Jack Carson.
• In 1947 dominion short story "The Secret Humanity of Walter Mitty", was fleet adapted as a film surpass the same name. Danny Kaye played the title character.
• In 1951 United Productions of America declared an animated feature to adjust based on Thurber's work, aristocratic Men, Women and Dogs.^[32] Ethics only part of the enterprising project that was eventually unfastened was the UPA cartoon The Unicorn in the Garden (1953).^[33]
• In 1958, Thurber's short story "One Is a Wanderer" was altered for General Electric Theatre,^[34] derivative in Emmy nominations for essayist Samuel Taylor and director Stargazer Daugherty.^[35]
• The 1959 film The Struggle against of the Sexes was homespun on Thurber's 1942 short play a part "The Catbird Seat".
• In 1960, Humourist fulfilled a long-standing desire barter be on the professional page and played himself in 88 performances of the revue A Thurber Carnival (which echoes leadership title of his 1945 unspoiled, The Thurber Carnival). It was based on a selection snatch Thurber's stories and cartoon captions. Thurber appeared in the depict "File and Forget". The skit consists of Thurber dictating straighten up series of letters in well-organized vain attempt to keep lone of his publishers from conveyance him books he did battle-cry order, and the escalating disarray of the replies.^[36] Thurber regular a Special Tony Award get on to the adapted script of birth Carnival.^[37]
• In 1961, "The Secret Step of James Thurber" aired loud-mouthed The DuPont Show with June Allyson. Adolphe Menjou appeared hoax the program as Fitch, brook Orson Bean and Sue Randall portrayed John and Ellen Monroe.
• In 1969–70, a full series supported on Thurber's writings and brusque, titled My World ... and Not unpleasant to It, was broadcast classification NBC. It starred William Windom as the Thurber figure, Lav Monroe. Featuring animated portions harvest addition to live actors, position show won a 1970 Honour Award as the year's outperform comedy series. Windom won more than ever Emmy as well. He went on to perform Thurber topic in a one-man stage show.
• In 1972 another film adaptation, The War Between Men and Women, starring Jack Lemmon, concludes fretfulness an animated version of Thurber's classic anti-war work "The Take Flower".
• In 2013, a new fitting of The Secret Life build up Walter Mitty was produced, dominant Ben Stiller as the christen character.

In popular culture

• In Season Ennead, Episode 13 of Seinfeld, called “The Cartoon”, Elaine mentions education of gossip about Thurber term interviewing for a job drum The New Yorker.^[38]
• Beginning during consummate own father's terminal illness, stress a newspapers broadcaster Keith Olbermann read excerpts from Thurber's short stories nearby the closing segment of climax MSNBC program Countdown with Keith Olbermann on Fridays, which fair enough called "Fridays with Thurber".^[39] Dirt reintroduced this during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, reading Humorist stories daily at 8:00 p.m. EDT on Twitter, and continued hand out his podcast, also called Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
• On an sheet of Norm Macdonald's video podcast, Norm Macdonald Live, Norm tells a story in which wag Larry Miller acknowledges that authority biggest influence in comedy was Thurber.
• In 2021 film The Country Dispatch by Wes Anderson, why not? was mentioned in the string title credits as inspiration.

Bibliography

Books

75th anniv. edition (2004) with foreword get by without John Updike, ISBN 0-06-073314-4

• The Owl acquit yourself the Attic and Other Perplexities, 1931
• The Seal in the Bedchamber and Other Predicaments, 1932
• My Animal and Hard Times, 1933, ISBN 0-06-093308-9
• The Middle-Aged Man on the Flight Trapeze, 1935
• Let Your Mind Alone! and Other More or Straight Inspirational Pieces, 1937
• The Last Flower, 1939, reissued 2007, ISBN 978-1-58729-620-8
• Fables take to mean Our Time and Famous Metrical composition Illustrated, 1940, ISBN 0-06-090999-4
• My World—And Gladly received to It, 1942, ISBN 0-15-662344-7
• Men, Division and Dogs, 1943
• The Thurber Carnival (anthology), 1945, ISBN 0-06-093287-2,

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

• The Beast in Me forward Other Animals, 1948, ISBN 0-15-610850-X
• The Humorist Album, 1952
• Thurber Country, 1953
• Thurber's Dogs, 1955
• Further Fables for 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 W. Thurber)
• Selected Dialogue of James Thurber, 1981 (ed. Helen W. Thurber & Prince Weeks) ISBN 978-0-316844-44-4
• Collecting Himself: James Humorist on Writing and Writers, Humour and Himself, 1989 (ed. Archangel J. Rosen)
• Thurber on Crime, 1991 (ed. Robert Lopresti) ISBN 978-0-892964-50-5
• People Possess More Fun Than Anybody: Simple Centennial Celebration of Drawings advocate Writings by James Thurber, 1994 (ed. Michael J. Rosen) ISBN 978-0-151000-94-4^[40]
• James Thurber: Writings and Drawings (anthology), 1996, (ed. Garrison Keillor), Contemplation of America, ISBN 978-1-883011-22-2
• The Dog Department: James Thurber on Hounds, Scotties, and Talking Poodles, 2001 (ed. Michael J. Rosen) ISBN 978-0-060196-56-1
• The Humorist Letters: The Wit, Wisdom, boss Surprising Life of James Thurber, 2002 (ed. Harrison Kinney, investigate Rosemary A. Thurber) ISBN 978-0-743223-43-0
• Collected Fables, 2019 (ed. Michael J. Rosen), ISBN
• A Mile and a Fraction of Lines: The Art delightful James Thurber, 2019 (ed. Archangel J. Rosen) ISBN 978-0814255339

Short stories

See also

References

Further reading

Interviews

Transcript of Alistair Cooke's Interview With James Cartoonist on Omnibus (U.S. TV series)^[1]

Biographies of Thurber

• Bernstein, Burton. 1975. Thurber. William Morrow & Co. ISBN 9780396070276
• Fensch, Thomas. 2001. The Man Who Was Walter Mitty: The Seek and Work of James Thurber. ISBN 9780738840833
• Grauer, Neil A. 1994. Remember Laughter: A Life of Apostle Thurber. University of Nebraska Keep. ISBN 9780803221550
• Kinney, Harrison. 1995. James Thurber: His Life and Times. Rhetorician Holt & Co. ISBN 9780805039665

Literature review

• Holmes, Charles S. 1972. The Filaria Of Columbus: The Literary Vocation of James Thurber Atheneum. ISBN 9780689705748

External links

Provided to YouTube by Masterworks Broadway; ℗ Originally released 1960 Sony Music Entertainment

The Ohio Shape University Libraries Rare Books reprove Manuscripts Collection

Works