Years with Ross

At the helm of America's most influential literary magazine for more than half a century, Harold Ross introduced the country to a host of exciting talent, including Robert Benchley, Alexander Woolcott, Ogden Nash, Peter Arno, Charles Addams, and Dorothy Parker.  But no one could have written about this irascible, eccentric genius more affectionately or more critically than James Thurber — an American icon in his own right — whose portrait of Ross captures not only a complex literary giant but a historic friendship and a glorious era as well.  "If you get Ross down on paper," warned Wolcott Gibbs to Thurber," nobody will ever believe it."  But readers of this unforgettable memoir will find that they do.

At the helm of America's most influential literary magazine for more than half a century, Harold Ross introduced the country to a host of exciting talent, including Robert Benchley, Alexander Woolcott, Ogden Nash, Peter Arno, Charles Addams, and Dorothy Parker.  But no one could have written about this irascible, eccentric genius more affectionately or more critically than James Thurber — an American icon in his own right — whose portrait of Ross captures not only a complex literary giant but a historic friendship and a glorious era as well.  "If you get Ross down on paper," warned Wolcott Gibbs to Thurber," nobody will ever believe it."  But readers of this unforgettable memoir will find that they do.

James Thurber (1894)-1961) created some thirty volumes of humor, fiction, children's books, cartoons, and essays in just about as many years. A founding member of The New Yorker staff, Thurber wrote and illustrated such enduring books as The Thurber Carnival and My Life and Hard Times, which have appeared in countless editions and dozens of languages throughout the world.