Thurber Thursday: John Updike’s Want List At 17; Unfortunate Cover Art; More Spills…Phillipe Halsman’s Thurber Photo…Bernstein’s “Thurber: A Biography” Dust Jacket

John Updike’s Want List At 17

Noted in the just published Selected Letters of John Updike, edited by James Schiff: a postcard sent by a 17 year old John Updike to Barnes & Noble, dated June 15, 1949, requesting the following books be held for him:

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Unfortunate Cover Art

By now, I shouldn’t be surprised when I run across modern cover art for classic books. This one, shown below left, for Thurber’s My Life And Hard Times (the original cover for the 1933 edition is on the right), just seems sad to me; the forlorn man, in the rain, holding an umbrella is a gross misreading of the book’s contents.

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…Phillipe Halsman’s Thurber Photo at The National Portrait Gallery. I’d never seen this terrific photo until today.

…And finally: yesterday I showed you the dust jacket of my copy of Brendan Gill’s Here At The New Yorker. As I mentioned, it’s in good shape for 50 (I bought it while still in college, in 1975). I also mentioned, in the same post, that in the same year I bought Gill’s book, I purchased Burton Bernstein’s Thurber: A Biography. I think you’ll be able to see, by the below photo of that book’s dust jacket, which volume saw more action, reading-wise.

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Thurber’s A-Z Entry

James Thurber Born, Columbus, Ohio, December 8, 1894. Died 1961, New York City. New Yorker work: 1927 -1961, with several pieces run posthumously. According to the New Yorker’s legendary editor, William Shawn, “In the early days, a small company of writers, artists, and editors — E.B. White, James Thurber, Peter Arno, and Katharine White among them — did more to make the magazine what it is than can be measured.”

Key cartoon collection: The Seal in the Bedroom and Other Predicaments (Harper & Bros., 1932). Key anthology (writings & drawings): The Thurber Carnival (Harper & Row, 1945). There have been a number of Thurber biographies. Burton Bernstein’s Thurber (Dodd, Mead, 1975) and Harrison Kinney’s James Thurber: His Life and Times (Henry Holt & Co., 1995) are essential. Website