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8 unusual facts about James Thurber


Battle of Appomattox Court House

James Thurber, himself the grandson of a Union veteran, wrote a humorous short story, "If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox," which was collected in the anthology, The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze, and again later in The Thurber Carnival.

Bob Swift

The stunt was inspired by the James Thurber short story You Could Look It Up and Gaedel was allowed to bat when the Browns showed the umpires a legitimate baseball contract.

Classic Motorsports Mitty

After observing the enthusiasm for that first event, Martha Turner, then editor of the Jaguar Marque, dubbed the proceedings the great Walter Mitty Challenge after the James Thurber short story.

Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do

Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do is a collection of prose written by E. B. White (the author of children's books Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little, as well as co-author of The Elements of Style), in conjunction with James Thurber (known for such short stories as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty).

Milan Crnković

He published about one-hundred research and literary papers, several translations from French (Honoré de Balzac, Stendhal, François Souchal) English (Daniel Dafoe, Albert Manfred, James Michener, Shel Silverstein, Isaac Singer, and James Thurber) and Russian (Kornej Cukovski).

Royal Astronomy

The album's title is a reference to an essay by Kurt Vonnegut (collected in Fates Worse Than Death) in which Vonnegut compares commentators on the intellectual and moral decline of society to the Royal Astronomer in The White Deer by James Thurber, who believes that the stars in the night sky are going out one by one, but in fact this is because he is slowly going blind.

Sanford-Curtis-Thurber House

The house was purchased in 1931 by Althea Thurber, the first wife of author and humorist James Thurber (1894–1961), and it was used as a weekend or holiday home.

Sue Randall

That same year she also guest starred as Ellen, with Adolphe Menjou as Fitch and Orson Bean as her husband John Monroe, in the episode "The Secret Life of James Thurber", based on the works of the American humorist James Thurber, in the CBS anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson.


Author's Playhouse

Premiering with "Elementals" by Stephen Vincent Benét, the series featured adaptations of stories by famous authors, such as “Mr. Mergenthwirker’s Lobbies” by Nelson Bond, "The Snow Goose" by Paul Gallico, "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs, "The Piano" by William Saroyan and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" by James Thurber.

Cass Canfield

He held various executive positions with Harper's in London and New York between then and 1931; among the writers who he signed to Harper's contracts were James Thurber, E. B. White, J. B. Priestley, Harold Laski, John Gunther, and Julian Huxley.

Charles Barsotti

A signature artist whose rounded, elegant, sparsely detailed style evokes both the traditional world of a James Thurber and the contemporary sensibility of a Roz Chast.

Here at The New Yorker

Much of the book is devoted to anecdotes about his best-known colleagues, such as cartoonists Peter Arno, Charles Addams, and James Thurber; writers Truman Capote, John Updike, S.J. Perelman, and John O'Hara; critics Wolcott Gibbs and Robert Benchley; and editors Katherine White, Harold Ross, and William Shawn.

My postillion has been struck by lightning

In James Thurber's 1937 New Yorker article "There's No Place Like Home", a phrasebook from "the era of Imperial Russia" contains the "magnificent" line: "Oh, dear, our postillion has been struck by lightning!".

Peter De Vries

He joined the staff of The New Yorker magazine at the insistence of James Thurber and worked there from 1944 to 1987, writing stories and touching up cartoon captions.

The Ohio State University Athletic Band

Other traditional songs performed by the band are the 1960s pop hit "Hang on Sloopy" and the famous "We Don't Give a Damn for the Whole State of Michigan", which was popularized by James Thurber in the Broadway production of The Male Animal.


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