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December 8th — Birthday of James Thurber
3 min readDec 9, 2022
1894 — Humorist and cartoonist James Thurber (Is Sex Necessary?) is born in Columbus, Ohio. Known for his wit, he will quip, “Some American writers who have known each other for years have never met in the daytime or when they both were sober.”
He was best known for his cartoons and short stories, published mainly in The New Yorker.
Thurber was one of the most popular humorists of his time and celebrated the comic frustrations and eccentricities of ordinary people. His works have frequently been adapted into films, including The Male Animal (1942), The Battle of the Sexes (1959, based on Thurber’s “The Catbird Seat”), and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (adapted twice, in 1947 and in 2013).
