James Thurber(December 8, 1894 – November 2, 1961)

Life

• Thurber was born in Columbus, Ohio• Son of Charles L. Thurber and Mary Agnes "Mame" (née

Fisher) Thurber • Born on December 8, 1894. • His father was an employed clerk and minor politician • Has 2 brothers which are William and Robert.• Lost one of his eye while playing William Tell ( a game

where they shoot an apple off one's head). This would later cause him to almost become entirely blind.

• Unable in his childhood to partake in sports and other activities because of his injury, he elaborated a creative mind which he then used to express himself in writings.

• From 1913 to 1918, Thurber attended The Ohio State University but he could not graduate because of his poor eyesight.

• In 1927, Thurber moved to Greenwich Village in New York City, getting a job as a reporter for the New York Evening Post, with the help of E.B. White, his friend and fellow New Yorker contributor.

• Thurber's 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.

• Thurber contributed both his writings and his drawings to The New Yorker until the 1950s.

• Thurber was married twice. In 1922, Thurber married Althea Adams. The marriage was troubled and ended in divorce in May 1935.They had a daughter Rosemary together, and lived in Fairfield County, Connecticut.

• He remarried in June 1935 to Helen Wismer (1902–1986)• Thurber was stricken with a blood clot on the brain on

October 4, 1961, and underwent emergency surgery.

• The operation was successful, but he died, aged 66, due to complications from pneumonia which set in.

• His last words, aside from the repeated word "God," were "God bless... God damn", according to his wife, Helen.

Career

• Many of his 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 areThe Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The Catbird Seat, A Couple of Hamburgers, The Greatest Man in the World.

• Thurber wrote over seventy-five fables, some of which were first published in "The New Yorker" (1939), then collected in Fables for Our Time & Famous Poems Illustrated (1940) and Further Fables for Our Time (1956).

• These were short, featured anthropomorphic animals (e.g. The Little Girl and the Wolf, his version ofLittle 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.

• 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.

Legacy and honours

• Established in 1997, the annual Thurber Prize honors outstanding examples of American humor.

• In 2008, The Library of America selected Thurber's story, " A Sort of Genius", first published in The New Yorker, for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime.

• Two of his residences have been listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places: his childhood Thurber House in Ohio and the Sanford-Curtis-Thurber House inFairfield County, Connecticut.

WorksBOOKS• 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

• The Owl in the Attic and Other Perplexities, 1931

• The Seal in the Bedroom and Other Predicaments, 1932

• My Life and Hard Times,

• 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 

• The Male Animal (stage play), 1939 (with Elliott Nugent) and screenplay starring Henry Fonda, written by Stephen Morehouse Avery

• Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated, 1940

• My World – And Welcome To It, 1942 

• 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

• A Thurber Carnival (stage play), 1960

• Lanterns and Lances, 1961

• CHILDREN'S BOOK

• Many Moons, (children) 1943 (later condensed as The Princess Who Wanted The Moon)

• The Great Quillow, (children) 1944

• The White Deer, (children) 1945

• The 13 Clocks, (children) 1950

• The Wonderful O, (children) 1957

• Thurber On Crime, 1991 (ed. Robert Lopresti)

• People Have More Fun Than Anybody: A Centennial Celebration of Drawings and Writings by James Thurber, 1994 (ed. Michael J. Rosen)

• 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)

• The Thurber Letters, 2002 (ed. Harrison Kinney, with Rosemary A. Thurber)

• Short stories

• "The Man Who Hated Moonbaum"

• "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"

• "The Night the Bed Fell"

• "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)

• "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"

• "If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox"

• "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"

Posthumous books

• 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)

• Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself, 1989 (ed. Michael J. Rosen)