Most Popular Books by James Thurber

At the helm of America''s most influential literary magazine for more than half a century, Harold Ross introduced the country to a host of exciting talent, including Robert Benchley, Alexander Woolcott, Ogden Nash, Peter Arno, Charles Addams, and Dorothy Parker. But no one could have written about this irascible, eccentric genius more affectionately or more critically than James Thurber -- an American icon in his own right -- whose portrait of Ross captures not only a complex literary giant but a historic friendship and a glorious era as well. "If you get Ross down on paper," warned Wolcott Gibbs to Thurber," nobody will ever believe it." But readers of this unforgettable memoir will find that they do.

"A melancholy argument against annihilation, "The Last Flower" is on the short list of books worth clutching to your chest as the world is destroyed."--David Rees, author of "Get Your War On."

In 1923, the young reporter James Thurber was given a half a page in the Sunday Evening Dispatch of Columbus, Ohio, every week to fill with anything he wanted. For most of that year, he turned out book reviews, humorous commentary, jokes, stories, and even literary criticism. He also wrote a series of 13 short Sherlockian parodies — 10,000 words in all — starring Blue Ploermell, a “psychosocial” detective with a fondness for animal crackers. Aided (and occasionally impeded) by his Chinese manservant, Gong Low, Ploermell investigates cases marked by his cock-eyed deductions, loopy logic, and a knack for leaping to the wrong conclusion. These juvenilia represents Thurber’s first attempts at learning the craft of humor writing. Looking back at this work years later, he even considered publishing the Ploermell stories. The Cases of Blue Ploermell, for the first time in a century, collects the 13 stories. Edited and annotated by Bill Peschel, they show Thurber trying his hand at characterization, story structure, ethnic humor, and serial writing in a style rarely seen at any newspaper. In addition to the annotations, Peschel wrote essays on Thurber’s years in Columbus, Ohio; journalism in the 1920s; the state of Sherlockian parodies; and depictions of Chinese men and women in American popular culture. Note: The 13 stories are very short, and take up 40 pages of this 200-page book. The rest of the book consists of these essays: “Becoming James Thurber” (39 pages); “Journalism in Thurber’s Time” (4 pages); “Sherlockian Parodies in the 1920s” (8 pages); “The Ancestors of Gong Low” (13 pages); “The Chinese in Popular Culture” (35 pages); movie reviews (19 pages); chronology (9 pages); lists (7 pages). SHORT DESCRIPTION: In 1923, a young James Thurber wrote 13 short Sherlockian parodies (10,000 words) for his newspaper in Columbus, Ohio. They starred Blue Ploermell, a “psychosocial” detective with a fondness for animal crackers. Aided by his Chinese manservant, he solves cases with his cock-eyed deductions and a knack for leaping to the wrong conclusion. This book contains the stories plus essays about Thurber.

Tommy Turner is an English teacher at football-crazed Midwestern University. Although he is uninvolved with the politics of the day, Tommy suddenly finds himself the center of a free-speech debate on campus. An editorial in a student magazine praises him for planning to read Bartolomeo Vanzetti''s sentencing statement to his class as an example of eloquent composition, even in broken English composed by a non-professional. The school''s conservative trustees, led by Ed Keller threaten to fire Tommy if he doesn''t withdraw the reading from his lecture. The subject of free speech and Tommy''s dilemma of conscience anchor the dramatic subplot''s social significance. The lighter comic triangle plot concerns a return visit to attend the big football game by Joe Ferguson, a former football hero and onetime love interest of Turner''s wife Ellen. Joe is recently divorced and he rekindles Ellen''s romantic notions at the very moment when her marriage to Tommy is being tested by the events on campus.

Tells how the great Quillow got his name and about his adventure with Hunder, the giant.

When he finds himself in serious trouble with the police on a stolen car charge, fifteen-year-old Johnny Pierce tries to analyze the reasons for his predicament.

Many of his short stories are humorous fictional memoirs from his life, but he also wrote darker material. The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze features several short stories with a tense undercurrent of marital discord. The book was published the year of his divorce and remarriage.

REDISCOVER THIS BELOVED COLLECTION of James Thurber''s best tales and drawings about dogs and their men, women, and children in 24 stories, sketches and essays. “Only a few books have stayed with me through all the moves and upheavals of adult life, but Thurber’s Dogs is one of them, and it will stay with me to the end.”—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post “The dog has got more fun out of Man than Man has got out of the dog, for the clearly demonstrable reason that Man is the more laughable of the two animals,” writes James Thurber in the introduction to this collection of his best writings and drawings about the unpredictable and often inexplicable relationships between dogs and their men, women, and children. In two dozen stories and essays and six sequences of drawings, he honors the dogs, real and imaginary, that have populated his life and work. Included in Thurber’s Dogs: Thurber’s first published story features Josephine, the bull terrier that didn’t seem to live up to a couple’s expectations—until they regretted giving her away and resorted to extreme measures to get her back. “The Dog Who Bit People” remembers Muggs the Airedale, a dog that gave Thurber “more trouble than all the other fifty-four or -five put together” yet somehow found an impeccable ally in Thurber’s mother. Several pieces recall the Scottish terrier Jeannie, another troublemaker, who delighted in wandering off and implanting herself in the homes, parties, and picnics of other families. Rex, the noble pit bull from Thurber’s childhood, developed the perplexing habit of bringing home large pieces of furniture and the gates from the gardens of neighbors’ yards. Blaze, an English mastiff, received preferential treatment on a military plane—and the resulting scandal dominated headlines and hilariously plunged Franklin Roosevelt’s administration into crisis mode. Among the selections available only in this volume are essays defending the reputations of poodles and bloodhounds, two breeds Thurber believed were largely misunderstood and underappreciated. This iconic collection of Thurber’s funniest and most delightful dog cartoons and writings is a must have for dog lovers.

Denis De Beaulieu, a French soldier, is made a prisoner by the Sire of De Maletroit, who believes that the soldier has compromised the Maletroit family honor.

2 funny fairytales.