James Thurber

Musical comedy Based on the story by James Thurber Characters: 5 male, 6 female, and as many extras as desired. Scenery: Various simple sets (or one basic set). On his fortieth birthday Walter Mitty reflects on his drab, ordinary life. Defeated in his quest for wealth and glory by family responsibilities, a mortgage, and a routine job, he creates elaborate fantasies in which he is the hero. His secret world is so enticing that he often loses sight of the boundary between dream and reality and comically slips into his imagination. An attractive would be chanteuse aptly named Willa de Wisp encourages Walter to leave his wife, shed the burdens of suburban living and really live the secret life. Unfortunately it is as unattainable as it is appealing. At the end of the play Walter discovers that he is happily committed to the real world. "A thoroughly pleasant musical evening."-- Time.

Originally published in November 1939, two months after World War II officially began, James Thurber's parable in pictures - a graphic novel ahead of its day - about the eternal cycles of war, peace, love, and the resilience of one little flower remains as relevant today as it was then. ""The New York Times"" called it ""at once one of the most serious and one of the most hilarious contributions on war."" E. B. White wrote, ""In it you will find his faith in the renewal of life, his feeling for the beauty and fragility of life on earth."" Civilization has collapsed after World War XII, dogs have deserted their masters, all the groves and gardens have been destroyed, and love has vanished from the earth. Then one day, ""a young girl who had never seen a flower chanced to come upon the last one in the world."" Written amid the sorrow and chaos of war, dedicated to his only child ""in the wistful hope that her world will be better than mine,"" Thurber's ""The Last Flower"" is a wise and loving testimony to the salvation found in nature. This new printing will feature new scans of Thurber's original 1939 drawings.

"If this book isn't a minor classic--and one uses the term 'minor' only because it is so gorgeously funny and not ponderous enough to be a major--well, one doesn't know what book is. Let's compromise and just call it a classic." --Will Cuppy, New York Herald TribuneThe first book of prose published by either James Thurber or E. B. White, Is Sex Necessary? combines the humor and genius of both authors to examine those great mysteries of life--romance, love, and marriage. A masterpiece of drollery, this 75th Anniversary Edition stands the test of time with its sidesplitting spoof of men, women, and psychologists; more than fifty funny illustrations by Thurber; and a foreword by John Updike.

From iconic American humorist James Thurber, a celebrated and poignant memoir about his years at The New Yorker with the magazine's unforgettable founder and longtime editor, Harold Ross"Extremely entertaining. . . . life at The New Yorker emerges as a lovely sort of pageant of lunacy, of practical jokes, of feuds and foibles. It is an affectionate picture of scamps playing their games around a man who, for all his brusqueness, loved them, took care of them, pampered and scolded them like an irascible mother hen." --New York TimesWith a foreword by Adam Gopnik and illustrations by James ThurberAt the helm of America's most influential literary magazine from 1925 to 1951, Harold Ross introduced the country to a host of exciting talent, including Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, 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, 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. Offering a peek into the lives of two American literary giants and the New York literary scene at its heyday, The Years with Ross is a true classic, and a testament to the enduring influence of their genius.

William Shawn once called The Talk of the Town the soul of the magazine. The section began in the first issue, in 1925. But it wasn't until a couple of years later, when E. B. White and James Thurber arrived, that the Talk of the Town story became what it is today: a precise piece of journalism that always gets the story and has a little fun along the way.The Fun of It is the first anthology of Talk pieces that spans the magazine's life. Edited by Lillian Ross, the longtime Talk reporter and New Yorker staff writer, the book brings together pieces by the section's most original writers. Only in a collection of Talk stories will you find E. B. White visiting a potter's field; James Thurber following Gertrude Stein at Brentano's; Geoffrey Hellman with Cole Porter at the Waldorf Towers; A. J. Liebling on a book tour with Albert Camus; Maeve Brennan ventriloquizing the long-winded lady; John Updike navigating the passageways of midtown; Calvin Trillin marching on Washington in 1963; Jacqueline Onassis chatting with Cornell Capa; Ian Frazier at the Monster Truck and Mud Bog Fall Nationals; John McPhee in virgin forest; Mark Singer with sixth-graders adopting Hudson River striped bass; Adam Gopnik in Flatbush visiting the ìgrandest theatre devoted exclusively to the movies; Hendrik Hertzberg pinning down a Sulzberger on how the Times got colorized; George Plimpton on the tennis court with Boris Yeltsin; and Lillian Ross reporting good little stories for more than forty-five years. They and dozens of other Talk contributors provide an entertaining tour of the most famous section of the most famous magazine in the world.

James Thurber, whimsical fantasist and deadpan chronicler of everyday absurdities, brought American humor into the 20th century. His comic persona, a modern citydweller whose zaniest flights of free association are tinged with anxiety, remains hilarious, subtly disturbing, and instantly recognizable. Here, in over 1000 pages, editor Garrison Keillor presents the best and most extensive collection ever assembled. Over 100 pieces include "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and "The Catbird Seat," the brilliantly satirical "Fables for Our Time," the classic "My Life and Hard Times," and the best of "The Owl in the Attic," "Let Your Mind Alone ," "My World--And Welcome to It," and the other famous books. Plus 500 wonderful drawings, including "The Seal in the Bedroom" and celebrated sequences like "The Masculine Approach" and "The War Between Men and Women." Rounding out the volume is a selection from "The Years with Ross," a memoir of the "New Yorker" publisher, and a number of wonderful early pieces never collected by Thurber.

"Vintage Thurber. . . small masterpieces of contemporary comment." --Chicago Tribune"As funny, surprising, elegant, and subtly provocative as one would expect from that superb writer and draftsman." --Atlantic MonthlyThis delightful volume of previously uncollected work from beloved American humorist James Thurber includes nearly one hundred drawings and writings by the only cartoonist who could claim to draw "abstract things like despair, disillusion, despondency, sorrow, lapse of memory, exile." Edited and with an Introduction by Michael J. Rosen.

Though many try, only the court jester is able to fulfill Princess Lenore's wish for the moon.

The world of Thurber is splendidly sampled in these thirty stories, sketches, and articles that range from the wildest comedy to the serious business of murder. Animal courtship, maids, Macbeth, baseball, sailing, marriage-all fall within Thurber's scope. Drawings by the Author.