American humorist James Thurber’s classic short story is about a man who escapes the tedium of his mundane life by retreating into his vivid imagination. This title features a new introduction by Rosemary A. Thurber, James Thurber’s daughter, as well as a selection of Thurber drawings.

A comprehensive collection of the American humorist’s best work—including “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”—plus original drawings and a chronology of Thurber’s own troubled lifeJames Thurber, whimsical fantasist and deadpan chronicler of everyday absurdities, brought American humor into the 20th century. His comic persona, a modern city-dweller whose zaniest flights of free association are tinged with anxiety, remains hilarious, subtly disturbing, and instantly re...

"An authentic American genius . . . Mr. Thurber belongs in the great lines of American humorists that includes Mark Twain and Ring Lardner." — The Philadelphia InquirerJames Thurber's unique ability to convey the vagaries of life in a funny, witty, and often satirical way earned him accolades as one of the finest humorists of the twentieth century. A bestseller upon its initial publication in 1945, The Thurber Carnival captures the depth of his tal...

"These tiny stories, in which a wide variety of animals show us how human we really are, are completely uproarious." — Saturday Review of Literature"These fables are as cogent and necessary today as they were before and after the Great War when Thurber's plainspoken, satiric fables provided a way to speak out in an era of political suspiciousness, false hopes, and mistrust. These fables are, indeed, for our time." —Michael J. Rosen, from the Introductio...

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,...

Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do (1929) is a brilliant satirical work that humorously dissects the popular psychological and social theories about sex, love, and human behavior prevalent in the early twentieth century. Written by E. B. White and James Thurber, the book adopts the tone of a mock scientific study, complete with absurd charts, invented terminology, and tongue-in-cheek definitions. Rather than offering genuine explanations, the authors parody the era's obsessi...

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 (...

**REDISCOVER THIS BELOVED COLLECTION of James Thurber's best tales and drawings about dogs and their men, women, and children in 24 stories, profiles, 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 demonstrabl...

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. ...

The evil Duke of cold Coffin Castle fancies he has frozen time by stopping all of the clocks. He is fearful that one day a Prince may come and win away the hand of his niece, beautiful Princess Saralinda—the only warm hand in the castle. Several suitors have tried to court the Princess, but the Duke assigns them impossible tasks to thwart that fate. A few days before Saralinda's twenty-first birthday, a mysterious prince arrives to complete a seemingly impossible task and free Saralinda fr...

Only The New Yorker could fetch such an unbelievable roster of talent on the subject of man’s best friend.This copious collection, beautifully illustrated, features articles, fiction, humor, poems, cartoons, cover art, drafts, and drawings from the magazine’s archives. The roster of contributors includes John Cheever, Susan Orlean, Roddy Doyle, Ian Frazier, Arthur Miller, John Updike, Roald Dahl, E. B. White, A. J. Liebling, Alexandra Fuller, Jerome Groopm...

The Wonderful O tells of a man named Black who despised the letter "O." He deleted it from his language and omitted it from his words. Opals, moonstones, owls, and oaks could not possibly be his items of choice. Instead, he preferred emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and maps since they contained not a single "O" among them. Soon he wanted his entire village to omit the letter "O," but the villagers found words they would not do without—words such as HOPE, LOVE, VALOR, and the most imp...