This towering figure in American comedy, James Thurber, is responsible for moving comic writing from the baroque rhythms and dialect humor that dominated the previous century into everyday conversation. His comic persona of the put-upon everyman struggling to deal with a strange and often hard world has become a cornerstone of written and spoken American comedy. Thurber was born in Columbus, Ohio. His best-known characters are perhaps Walter Mitty, his snarling wife, and silently observing animals. In the early 1920s, he worked as a journalist for several newspapers. Thurber also lived in Paris, writing for the Chicago Tribune while trying to further his writing career.
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