James Thurber

In 1925, Thurber moved to Greenwich Village in New York City, obtaining a job as a reporter with the New York Evening Post. He joined the staff of The New Yorker in 1927 as an editor, with the help of E. B. White, his friend and fellow New Yorker contributor. His career as a cartoonist began in 1930 after White found some of Thurber's drawings in a trash can and submitted them for publication; White inked-in some of these earlier drawings to make them reproduce better for the magazine, and years later expressed deep regret he had done such a thing. Thurber contributed both his writings and his drawings to The New Yorker until the 1950s.

Thurber married Althea Adams in 1922, although the marriage, as he later wrote to a friend, devolved into “a relationship charming, fine, and hurting.”[6] The marriage ended in divorce in May 1935.[1] They lived in Fairfield County, Connecticut, with their daughter Rosemary (b. 1931).[7] He married Helen Wismer (1902–1986) in June 1935.[8] After meeting Mark Van Doren on a ferry to Martha's Vineyard, Thurber began summering in Cornwall, Connecticut, along with many other prominent artists and authors of the time. After three years of renting Thurber found a home, which he referred to as "The Great Good Place."[9]

Thurber's behavior became erratic and unpredictable in his last year. At a party hosted by Noël Coward, Thurber was taken back to the Algonquin Hotel at six in the morning. Thurber was stricken with a blood clot on the brain on October 4, 1961, and underwent emergency surgery, drifting in and out of consciousness. Although the operation was initially successful, Thurber died a few weeks later, on November 2, aged 66, due to complications from pneumonia. The doctors said his brain was senescent from several small strokes and hardening of the arteries. His last words, aside from the repeated word "God", were "God bless... God damn", according to his wife, Helen.[10]

Many of Thurber's short stories are humorous fictional memoirs from his life, but he also wrote darker material, such as "The Whip-Poor-Will", a story of madness and murder. His best-known short stories are "The Dog That Bit People" and "The Night the Bed Fell"; they can be found in My Life and Hard Times, which was his "break-out" book. Among his other classics are "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", "The Catbird Seat", "The Night the Ghost Got In", "A Couple of Hamburgers", "The Greatest Man in the World", and "If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox". The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze has several short stories with a tense undercurrent of marital discord. The book was published the year of his divorce and remarriage.

Although his 1941 story "You Could Look It Up",[16] about a three-foot adult being brought in to take a walk in a baseball game, has been said[17] to have inspired Bill Veeck's stunt with Eddie Gaedel with the St. Louis Browns in 1951, Veeck claimed an older provenance for the stunt.[18]

In addition to his other fiction, Thurber wrote over seventy-five fables, some of which were first published in The New Yorker (1939), then collected in Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated (1940) and Further Fables for Our Time (1956). These were short stories that featured anthropomorphic animals (e.g. "The Little Girl and the Wolf", his version of Little Red Riding Hood) as main characters, and ended with a moral as a tagline. An exception to this format was his most famous fable, "The Unicorn in the Garden", which featured an all-human cast except for the unicorn, which doesn't speak. Thurber's fables were satirical, and the morals served as punch lines as well as advice to the reader, demonstrating "the complexity of life by depicting the world as an uncertain, precarious place, where few reliable guidelines exist."[19] His stories also included several book-length fairy tales, such as The White Deer (1945), The 13 Clocks (1950) and The Wonderful O (1957). The latter was one of several of Thurber's works illustrated by Marc Simont.

Thurber's prose for The New Yorker and other venues included numerous humorous essays. A favorite subject, especially toward the end of his life, was the English language. Pieces on this subject included "The Spreading 'You Know'," which decried the overuse of that pair of words in conversation, "The New Vocabularianism", and "What Do You Mean It Was Brillig?". His short pieces – whether stories, essays or something in between – were referred to as "casuals" by Thurber and the staff of The New Yorker.[20]

Thurber wrote a five-part New Yorker series, between 1947 and 1948, examining in depth the radio soap opera phenomenon, based on near-constant listening and researching over the same period. Leaving nearly no element of these programs unexamined, including their writers, producers, sponsors, performers, and listeners alike, Thurber republished the series in his anthology, The Beast in Me and Other Animals (1948), under the section title "Soapland." The series was one of the first to examine such a pop-culture phenomenon in depth.

The last twenty years of Thurber's life were filled with material and professional success in spite of his blindness. He published at least fourteen books in that era, including The Thurber Carnival (1945), Thurber Country (1953), and the extremely popular book about New Yorker founder/editor Harold Ross, The Years with Ross (1959). A number of his short stories were made into movies, including "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" in 1947.

While Thurber drew his cartoons in the usual fashion in the 1920s and 1930s, his failing eyesight later required changes. He drew them on very large sheets of paper using a thick black crayon (or on black paper using white chalk, from which they were photographed and the colors reversed for publication). Regardless of method, his cartoons became as noted as his writings; they possessed an eerie, wobbly feel that seems to mirror his idiosyncratic view on life. He once wrote that people said it looked like he drew them under water. Dorothy Parker, a contemporary and friend of Thurber, referred to his cartoons as having the "semblance of unbaked cookies". The last drawing Thurber completed was a self-portrait in yellow crayon on black paper, which was featured as the cover of Time magazine on July 9, 1951.[21] The same drawing was used for the dust jacket of The Thurber Album (1952).

• Thurber teamed with college schoolmate (and actor/director) Elliott Nugent to write The Male Animal, a comic drama that became a major Broadway hit in 1939. The play was adapted as a film by the same name in 1942, starring Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland and Jack Carson.
• In 1947 his short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", was loosely adapted as a film by the same name. Danny Kaye played the title character.
• In 1951 United Productions of America announced an animated feature to be based on Thurber's work, titled Men, Women and Dogs.[22] The only part of the ambitious project that was eventually released was the UPA cartoon The Unicorn in the Garden (1953).[23]
• In 1958, Thurber's short story "One Is a Wanderer" was adapted for General Electric Theatre,[24] resulting in Emmy nominations for writer Samuel Taylor and director Herschel Daugherty.[25]
• In 1960, Thurber fulfilled a long-standing desire to be on the professional stage and played himself in 88 performances of the revue A Thurber Carnival (which echoes the title of his 1945 book, The Thurber Carnival). It was based on a selection of Thurber's stories and cartoon captions. Thurber appeared in the sketch "File and Forget". The sketch consists of Thurber dictating a series of letters in a vain attempt to keep one of his publishers from sending him books he did not order, and the escalating confusion of the replies.[26] Thurber received a Special Tony Award for the adapted script of the Carnival.[27]
• In 1961, "The Secret Life of James Thurber" aired on The DuPont Show with June Allyson. Adolphe Menjou appeared in the program as Fitch, and Orson Bean and Sue Randall portrayed John and Ellen Monroe.
• In 1969–70, a full series based on Thurber's writings and life, titled My World ... and Welcome to It, was broadcast on NBC. It starred William Windom as the Thurber figure. Featuring animated portions in addition to live actors, the show won a 1970 Emmy Award as the year's best comedy series. Windom won an Emmy as well. He went on to perform Thurber material in a one-man stage show.
• In 1972 another film adaptation, The War Between Men and Women, starring Jack Lemmon, concludes with an animated version of Thurber's classic anti-war work "The Last Flower".
• In 2013, a new adaptation of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, starring Ben Stiller as the title character.

• Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do, (1929 with E. B. White), 75th anniv. edition (2004) with foreword by John Updike, ISBN 0-06-073314-4
• The Owl in the Attic and Other Perplexities, 1931
• The Seal in the Bedroom and Other Predicaments, 1932
• My Life and Hard Times, 1933 ISBN 0-06-093308-9
• The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze, 1935
• Let Your Mind Alone! and Other More Or Less Inspirational Pieces, 1937
• The Last Flower, 1939, reissued 2007 ISBN 978-1-58729-620-8
• Fables for Our Time and 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 in Me and Other Animals, 1948 ISBN 0-15-610850-X
• The Thurber 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

• Many Moons, 1943 (later condensed as The Princess Who Wanted The Moon)
• The Great Quillow, 1944
• The White Deer, 1945
• The 13 Clocks, 1950
• The Wonderful O, 1957

• The Male Animal, 1940 (with Elliott Nugent)
• A Thurber Carnival, 1960

• Credos and Curios, 1962 (ed. Helen W. Thurber)
• Thurber & Company, 1966 (ed. Helen W. Thurber)
• Selected Letters of James Thurber, 1981 (ed. Helen W. Thurber & Edward Weeks) ISBN 978-0-316844-44-4
• Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself, 1989 (ed. Michael J. Rosen)
• Thurber on Crime, 1991 (ed. Robert Lopresti) ISBN 978-0-892964-50-5
• People Have More Fun Than Anybody: A Centennial Celebration of Drawings and Writings by James Thurber, 1994 (ed. Michael J. Rosen) ISBN 978-0-151000-94-4
• James Thurber: Writings and Drawings (anthology), 1996, (ed. Garrison Keillor), Library 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 Thurber Letters: The Wit, Wisdom, and Surprising Life of James Thurber, 2002 (ed. Harrison Kinney, with Rosemary A. Thurber) ISBN 978-0-743223-43-0
• Collected Fables, 2019 (ed. Michael J. Rosen), ISBN
• A Mile and a Half of Lines: The Art of James Thurber, 2019 (ed. Michael J. Rosen) ISBN 978-0814255339

• “A Box to Hide In”
• "A Ride with Olympy"
• "The Departure of Emma Inch"
• "The Admiral on the Wheel"
• "Doc Marlowe"
• "One is a Wanderer"
• "The Topaz Cuff Links Mystery"
• "What Do You Mean It Was Brillig?"
• "The Glass in the Field"
• "The Crow and the Oriole"
• "The Little Girl and the Wolf"
• "Snapshot of a Dog"
• "Oh When I Was..."
• "The Greatest Man in the World"
• "If Grant had been Drinking at Appomattox"
• "The Bear Who Let it Alone"
• "Destructive Forces Life"
• "The Seal Who Became Famous"
• "The Moth and the Star"
• "Sex Ex Machina"
• "The Man Who Hated Moonbaum"
• "The Black Magic of Barney Haller"
• "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
• "The Night the Bed Fell"
• "The Night the Ghost Got In"
• "The Unicorn in the Garden"
• "The Moth and the Star"
• "The Rabbits Who Caused All the Trouble"
• "The Macbeth Murder Mystery", 1937 (printed in The New Yorker)
• "The Sheep in Wolf's Clothing", The New Yorker (29 April 1939)
• "You Could Look It Up", 1941
• "The Catbird Seat", 1942
• "The Secret Life of James Thurber", 1943
• "The Breaking Up of the Winships", 1945
• "A Couple of Hamburgers"
• "The Greatest Man in the World"
• "The Cane in the Corridor"
• "The Bear Who Let It Alone"
• "The Princess and the Tin Box"
• "The Dog That Bit People"
• "The Lady on 142"
• "The Remarkable Case of Mr.Bruhl"
• "The Scotty Who Knew Too Much"
• "The Night the Ghost Got In"
• "The Car We Had to Push"
• "The Day the Dam Broke"
• "More Alarms at Night"
• "A Sequence of Servants"
• "University Days"
• "Draft Board Nights"
• "The Curb in the Sky"[29]
• "The Wood Duck"
• "The Tiger Who Was to Be King"
• "The Owl Who Was God"
• "The Peacelike Mongoose"
• "File and Forget"[30]
• "The Whip-Poor-Will"
• "Mr. Preble Gets Rid of His Wife"
• "The Evening's at Seven"

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

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