New Addition(s) To The Spill Library

With the arrival this week of the Armed Services edition of Thurber’s masterpiece, My Life And Hard Times, the Spill library has moved closer to a completing the Thurber Armed Services editions. Just The Thurber Carnival and Is Sex Necessary remain. All in good time! (I’m in no hurry).

Read more about the Armed Services editions here.

below: the other Thurber titles in the Spill library

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Also this week

Some time back I posted the above photo of the well-used (tattered?) dust jacket covering my copy of Burton Bernstein’s Thurber: A Biography. I bought this copy in 1975, the year it was published, when I was in my last year of college, diving deep into The New Yorker‘s history. I’ve read Mr. Bernstein’s book through and through, again and again (and it shows). Each time the book comes off the shelf I imagine the jacket loses a small piece or two (I’ve been patching it for years).

Strolling through the internet the other day I was so pleased to see a copy of Mr. Bernstein’s book in near new condition (price paid: $3.85). My 51 year old copy can now take it easy; from now on this “new” one will do the heavy lifting.

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Attempted Bloggery On A Recently Auctioned Thurber Original 

A Spill fave site, Attempted Bloggery, is all over the recently auctioned Thurber original shown above. Read it here!

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James Thurber’s A-Z Entry

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

I love it when a Thurber moment comes out of the blue. In this case the moment involves a 2020 Esquire article on Jerry Stiller, who played George Costanza’s father, Frank, on Seinfeld.

It’s difficult to imagine Seinfeld with Jerry Stiller’s Frank Costanza character as meek, but according to the article that’s exactly how Frank was originally conceived. We’ll never know how that would’ve worked out, but the way it did work out was comedy gold (I don’t suppose it’s necessary to mention that Jerry Stiller’s real life son, Ben Stiller directed, co-produced, and starred in a modern day take on Thurber’s Walter Mitty…well, no matter — I just mentioned it).

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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

Looking at James Thurber’s first New Yorker cartoons this morning, it came as quite a surprise that the famous “Thurber dog” did not make an appearance in the magazine until 29 Thurber cartoons had been published in the magazine (I’m not including the ones that showed up in his “Our Pet Department” series. While I love those dogs, they’re not the dog you see above, shown here in eraser form). In fact, not a one of those first 29 Thurber drawings had a dog anywhere in sight. When the classic Thurber dog did show up, in the issue of February 6, 1932, it was not an incidental dog in a cartoon featuring humans. The dog was the star of the show — the main attraction, and it made its debut in a 16 part(!) spread that traveled across the magazine’s gutter. I’ll show you the first part here:

The entire piece can be found in his collections, The Seal In The Bedroom, The Thurber Carnival, and Thurber’s Dogs (to mention just a few). If you have a subscription to The New Yorker you can, of course, find it in the archive, on pages 22-23 of the February 6, 1932 issue. It’s online here as well.

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James Thurber’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. Website

Ronald Searle’s James Thurber Medallion 

Below is a Ronald Searle designed medallion that turned up on Ebay the other day. I know nothing about medallions, or Ronald Searle‘s part in designing them, so I’m recommending that you visit Attempted Bloggery‘s posts on them here.

I like the dog side of the medallion; the Thurber portrait side…not so much. Here’s the Ebay listing for the piece shown below.

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James Thurber’s A-Z Entry:

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

Thurber House announced today that Rosemary Thurber, James Thurber’s only child, passed away on June 8th. She was 94 years old. The Last Flower, one of James Thurber’s most enduring works, carried this dedication:

When I read the Thurber House notification, my first thought went to this lovely and hopeful dedication. In November of 1939, when the book was published, Rosemary would’ve been just 8 years old (she was born October 7th, ’31).

Below: Rosemary, with her parents, James Thurber, and his first wife, Althea. Photo taken in the early 1930s.

Below: Rosemary Thurber in 2017, with Trevor Noah, who won the Thurber Prize that year.

Thurber house had this to say about Rosemary Thurber:

“Rosie has been a stalwart supporter of our mission to uphold her father’s legacy. An incredible contributor and beloved friend to Thurber House, Rosie played a pivotal role in the establishment and development of our organization. Her loss will be felt deeply by friends, family, and the entire Thurber”

You can read a full obit here.

James Thurber, speaking to Alistaire Cooke on Omnibus:

“…after I had sold a few to the New Yorker magazine, Andy White, my colleague there, found me carefully shading in something and he said, “ Hey, stop that, don’t do that — if you ever became good you’d be mediocre.” 

This somewhat famous quote has stuck with me for decades (I’m not really sure how famous it is). It seems, on its face, simple advice, but I believe there’s way more to it than “Hey…don’t do that.” E.B. White, who of course was an advocate of clarity in writing, was heading off a notion that so many fledgling artists develop — that they should aspire to becoming “better” at drawing. If that’s really what you want to do, than, “Hey…do that!”  But I believe the hunt for “better” can sometimes stifle the artist (please remember I said, “sometimes”).

One of the very best things about The New Yorker is that it embraced Thurber’s art as it was, not as New Yorker editors might wish it would be. That’s one of the wonders of the magazine’s editorial DNA: staying out of an artist’s way. Back in 2013, in my interview with veteran artist, Dana Fradon, he discussed The New Yorker’s Art editor, James Geraghty. Mr. Fradon said Geraghty’s editorial direction was simply, “Make it beautiful.” Thanks to the magazine’s hands-off policy, and E.B. White’s two cents, Thurber did Thurber (beautifully!) and we are all the luckier for it.

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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

“His People Simply Happen”

In a 1989 collection, Conversations With James Thurber (University Press of Mississippi) edited by Thomas Fensch, there’s a terrif article, “Melancholy Doodler,” by Arthur Millier (it originally appeared in The Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, July 2, 1939). Thurber was forty-four at the time, and in the last year of the best decade of his life, drawings-wise. His eyesight, by May of ’39, had already worsened  to the point of his “struggling to type, read, and draw.”

The article makes no mention of Thurber’s eyesight or his struggles — it rolls along as if all’s well in Thurberland. Here are just a few quotes from the piece (I’d run the whole thing, but don’t want to get into a copyright muddle).

Thurber speaking to Millier:

“You are probably the only person in America who knows I write.” he said bitterly. “They all say: ‘Oh yes, Thurber?–the guy makes those crazy drawings?'”

“i’m not an artist. I’m a painstaking writer who doodles for relaxation. But it’s those doodles they go for…They’ve even labeled me a Dadiast and a surrealist…”

“I almost never have a piece of writing turned down [by The New Yorker]. They print them all — but who reads them? Whereas my drawings — the things people know me for — are often turned down.”

“Captions can make a drawing. Some of my drawings lie around the office for years — waiting for an inspired line.”

Finally, here’s Millier talking about Thurber’s drawings:

“When Thurber begins a drawing of these curious yet strangely familiar people, he rarely knows what they will look like or do. He just lets his hand move with a pencil in it. His people simply happen…”

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–The undated drawing above can be found at Vassar’s Francis Lehman Loeb Art Center.  ________________

James Thurber’s A-Z Entry:

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