Tag Archives: James Thurber

You children write illiterate letters

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Letters of Note: You children write illiterate letters.

In 1958, a schoolboy named Robert Leifert wrote to the author and humourist, James Thurber, and asked for some assistance with a school project. Sadly for Robert (or luckily for Robert, depending on your viewpoint) it seems he caught Thurber on a bad day, and before long the youngster was the proud owner of the following delightfully grumpy response.

Let’s hope it was of some use.

(Source: Selected Letters of James Thurber; Image: James Thurber in 1954, via Wikipedia.)

Mr Robert Leifert

New York City, New York

January 4, 1958

Dear Robert,

Since a hundred schoolchildren a year write me letters like yours—some writers get a thousand—the problem of what to do about such classroom “projects” has become a serious one for all of us. If a writer answered all of you he would get nothing else done. When I was a baby goat I had to do my own research on projects, and I enjoyed doing it. I never wrote an author for his autograph or photograph in my life. Photographs are for movie actors to send to girls. Tell your teacher I said so, and please send me her name.

One of the things that discourage us writers is the fact that 90 per cent of you children write wholly, or partly, illiterate letters, carelessly typed. You yourself write “clarr” for “class” and that’s a honey, Robert, since s is next to a, and r is on the line above. Most schoolchildren in America would do a dedication like the following (please find the mistakes in it and write to me about them):

To Miss Effa G Burns

Without who’s help

this book could never

of been finished it,

is dedicated with

gartitude by it’s

arthur.

Show that to your teacher and tell her to show it to her principal, and see if they can find the mistakes.

Just yesterday a letter came in from a girl your age in South Carolina asking for biographical material and photograph. That is not the kind of education they have in Russia, we are told, because it’s too much like a hobby or waste of time. What do you and your classmates want to be when you grow up—collectors? Then who is going to help keep the United States ahead of Russia in science engineering, and the arts?

Please answer this letter. If you don’t I’ll write to another pupil.

Sincerely yours,

JAMES THURBER

James Thurber – Style Icon

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NAME: James Grover Thurber
OCCUPATION: Illustrator, Author
BIRTH DATE: December 08, 1894
DEATH DATE: November 02, 1961
EDUCATION: Ohio State University
PLACE OF BIRTH: Columbus, Ohio
PLACE OF DEATH: New York City, New York

BEST KNOWN FOR: James Thurber was an American cartoonist best known for his contributions to The New Yorker magazine.

James Thurber (born Dec. 8, 1894, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.—died Nov. 2, 1961, New York, N.Y.) U.S. writer and cartoonist. He attended Ohio State University before moving to New York City in 1926. He was on The New Yorker staff from 1927 to 1933 and thereafter remained a leading contributor. His drawings illustrated his first book, Is Sex Necessary? (1929; with E.B. White), and his cartoons became some of the most popular and recognizable in America. In 1940 his failing eyesight forced him to curtail his drawing; by 1952 he had to give it up altogether as his blindness became nearly total. His writings include My Life and Hard Times (1933), Fables for Our Time (1940), and the children’s book The 13 Clocks (1950). He is noted for his vision of the befuddled urban man who, like the hero of his short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (1939; film, 1946), escapes into fantasy.

An annual award, the Thurber Prize, begun in 1997, honors outstanding examples of American humor. In 2008, The Library of America selected Thurber’s New Yorker story “A Sort of Genius” for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime.

Two of his residences are on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places: the Thurber House in Ohio and the Sanford-Curtis-Thurber House in Fairfield County, Connecticut.

Thurber was a great lover of dogs, and competed widely in dog shows with several poodles.

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Happy Birthday James Thurber

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It’s the birthday of James Thurber, born in Columbus, Ohio (1894). His father was an underpaid civil servant who worked too hard; his mother was a funny woman who loved to play jokes. When he was seven years old, he was playing with his brothers and was shot in the eye with a bow and arrow; he went completely blind in one eye, and struggled with his eyesight for the rest of his life.

He dropped out of Ohio State University, spent a couple of years during World War I working as a code clerk, and in 1925, he moved to Greenwich Village in New York City, getting a job as a reporter for the New York Evening Post. He joined the staff of The New Yorker in 1927 as an editor with the help of his friend and fellow New Yorker contributor, E.B. White. His career as a cartoonist began in 1930 when 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 that he had done such a thing. Thurber would contribute 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.[1] Adams gave Thurber his only child, his daughter Rosemary. Thurber remarried in June 1935 to Helen Wismer.

He died in 1961, at the age of 66, due to complications from pneumonia, which followed upon a stroke suffered at his home. His last words, aside from the repeated word “God,” were “God bless… God damn,” according to Helen Thurber.

An annual award, the Thurber Prize, begun in 1997, honors outstanding examples of American humor. In 2008, The Library of America selected Thurber’s New Yorker story “A Sort of Genius” for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime.
Thurber said, “Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.”