The Lady on the Bookcase

James Thurber (1894–1961)
From James Thurber: Writings and Drawings

Also of Interest
The Thurber House, including selected quotes and a chronology of his life (Columbus, OH)

Video readings of Thurber selections: In 2010 Keith Olbermann, in memory of his late father, ended his Countdown program on Fridays with readings from the Library of America edition of James Thurber’s writings and drawings. See the first two segments from April 2 and April 9. (YouTube)

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The title illustration for “The Lady on the Bookcase.” Copyright © 1935 James Thurber. Reprinted with permission.

“I don’t think any drawing ever took me more than three minutes,” James Thurber once said of his work. Yet his style is instantly recognizable, his humor timeless and sometimes unsettling, his tableaus abounding with dogs, seals, birds, and (perhaps his favorite species) husbands and wives. His comic writings—stories, portraits, sketches, parodies, memoirs—spare no one, least of all himself.

In 1945 he wrote “Thurber As Seen By Thurber,” a whimsical assessment of his own cartoons, and published it in The New York Times Magazine. Facetiously dividing his body of work into five “separate and indistinct” categories, the article presents ten sample drawings (all reproduced in the selection below), discusses their creation and content, and uses the opportunity to tease Thurber's colleagues and editors at The New Yorker. Three years later, “verging on his middle fifties, when he should be engaged on some work dignified by length and of a solemnity suitable to our darkening age,” he included the piece in a book-length collection, The Beast in Me and Other Animals, and renamed it “The Lady on the Bookcase.” In the book’s foreword, he remarks that the “imaginary” animals in his stories and drawings “emerged from the shameless breeding ground of the idle mind and they are obviously not going anywhere in particular.”

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One day twelve years ago an outraged cartoonist, four of whose drawings had been rejected in a clump by The New Yorker, stormed into the office of Harold Ross, editor of the magazine. . . . If you don't see the full story below, click here (PDF) or click here (Google Docs) to read it—free!

This selection is used by permission.
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