James Thurber,1894-1961,James Grover Thurber 詹姆斯瑟伯,Genres: short stories, cartoons, essays Occupation:Humorist,writer, cartoonist Nationality:American Valuation: Thurber is generally acknowledged as the greatest American humorist since Mark Twain.,Outline,His Life and Times Career Bibliography evaluation,Thank you,His Life and Times,James Thurber was born in Columbus, Ohio. His father, Charles L. Thurber, was a clerk and minor politician, who went through many periods of unemployment. Mary Thurber, his mother, was a strong-minded woman and a practical joker(恶作剧者). Thurber described her as a born comedienne and one of the finest comic talents I think Ive ever known.,Thurber had two brothers, William and Robert. Once, while playing a game , his brother shot James in the eye with an arrow, and Thurber lost that eye. This injury would later cause him to become almost entirely blind. Unable in childhood to participate in sports and activities because of his injury, he developed a creative imagination, which he expressed in his writings.,From 1913 to 1918, Thurber attended The Ohio State University, where he was a member of the PhiKappa Psi fraternity(联谊会). He never graduated from the university because his poor eyesight prevented him from taking a mandatory ROTC(后备军官训练) course. In 1995 he was posthumously(于死后) awarded a degree.,From 1918 to 1920, at the close of World War I, Thurber worked as a code clerk for the Department of State, first in Washington, D.C., and then at the Embassy(大使馆) of the United States, Paris, France. After this Thurber returned to Columbus, where he began his writing career as a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch from 1921 to 1924. During part of this time, he reviewed current books, films, and plays in a weekly column called “Credos and Curios,” a title that later would be given to a posthumous collection of his work. Thurber also returned to Paris in this period, where he wrote for the Chicago Tribune (论坛)and other newspapers.,In 1925, Thurber 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 E.B. White, his friend and fellow New Yorker contributor. His career as a cartoonist began in 1930 after White found some of Thurbers drawings in a trash can(垃圾桶) and submitted them for publication; Thurber contributed both his writings and his drawings to The New Yorker until the 1950s.,Move to New York,Thurber was married twice. In 1922, Thurber married Althea Adams. The marriage was troubled and ended in divorce in May 1935. They had a daughter Rosemary together, and lived in Fairfield County, Connecticut. Thurber remarried in June 1935 to Helen Wismer. He was a great lover of dogs, and competed widely in dog shows with several poodles(贵宾犬). He died in 1961, at the age of 66, due to complications(并发症) from pneumonia, which followed upon a stroke(中风) suffered at his home. His last words, aside from the repeated word God, were God bless. God damn, according to Helen Thurber.,Marriage and family,Established in 1997, the annual Thurber Prize honors outstanding examples of American humor. In 2008, The Library of America selected Thurbers story, “A Sort of Genius,” first published in The New Yorker, for inclusion in its two-century retrospective(回顾展) of American True Crime. Two of his residences have been listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places: his childhood Thurber House in Ohio and the Sanford-Curtis-Thurber House in Fairfield County, Connecticut.,Legacy and honors,Uniquely among major American literary figures, he became equally well known for his simple, surrealistic(超现实主义的) drawings and cartoons. Both his skills were helped along by the support of, and collaboration with, fellow New Yorker staff member E. B. White, who insisted that Thurbers sketches could stand on their own as artistic expressions. Thurber drew six covers and numerous classic illustrations(插图) for The New Yorker.,Career,writer Many of his short stories are humorous fictional memoirs from his life, but he also wrote darker material, such as The Whip-Poor-Will, a story of madness and murder. His best-known short stories are The Dog That Bit People and The Night the Bed Fell; they can be found in My Life and Hard Times, the creative mix of autobiography and fiction which was his break-out book. Among his other classics are The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The Catbird Seat, A Couple of Hamburgers, The Greatest Man in the World and If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox. The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze has several short stories with a tense undercurrent of marital discord. The book was published the year of his divorce and remarriage.,In addition to his other fiction, Thurber wrote over seventy-five fables, most of which were collected in Fables for Our Time they possessed an eerie(怪异的), wobbly feel that seems to mirror his idiosyncrat