One of the defining moments in Thurber’s life occurred during a childhood game of “William Tell” when the family was living near Washington, D.C. As part of the game, seven-year-old James turned around and waited for his brother William to shoot at him with a blunt arrow. Convinced that his brother was taking too long, Thurber turned back around and his brother accidentally shot him in his left eye. Irreversibly blinded, the eye was replaced with a prosthetic. Throughout Thurber’s life, he gradually lost vision in his remaining eye due to a condition called sympathetic ophthalmia—but that never stopped him from writing or drawing.

After the Thurber family’s brief move to Washington, D.C., they returned to Columbus, where Thurber attended Sullivant Elementary School and Douglas Junior High School, before graduating from East High School in 1913.

From 1913–1918, Thurber attended The Ohio State University, where he wrote for the college paper, The Lantern, and was editor-in-chief of The Sun Dial humor and literary magazine. After the encouragement of friend Elliott Nugent, Thurber joined the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. It was at this time that the Thurbers rented the house at 77 Jefferson Avenue (which became Thurber House in 1984). Due to his partial blindness, Thurber was not able to complete a compulsory ROTC course and couldn’t graduate from OSU—although the university gave him a posthumous honorary degree many years later, in 1995.

After college, Thurber worked as a code clerk for the State Department in Washington, D.C., and later at the American Embassy in Paris, France. He returned to Columbus in 1920 and joined The Columbus Dispatch as a reporter. During his stint at the Dispatch, Thurber covered stories such as the opening of Ohio Stadium, and for a time had his own column called “Credos and Curios.” Thurber spent his evenings working on skits for the Strollers and Scarlet Mask theatre groups at Ohio State—where he met his first wife, Althea Adams. The young couple married in Columbus in 1922 and moved to Paris in 1925, where Thurber started work on the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune.

James and Althea Thurber’s daughter Rosemary was born in 1931. After several years of marital conflict, Thurber and Althea divorced in 1935. Thurber married Helen Wismer later that year. She convinced Thurber to leave New York and move to Connecticut after they married. Helen was Thurber’s editor and business manager, as well as his wife and caretaker, until his death.

Thurber spent much time in and about the Algonquin Hotel in New York City. Though never a formal member of the Algonquin Round Table, he was a favorite among many of its members, including Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley. Helen and James would stay in the Algonquin Hotel when visiting New York after they moved to Connecticut.

Thurber had a great love of dogs of all shapes and sizes. He even dedicated Is Sex Necessary? to two of his favorite terriers. Thurber included dogs in many of his drawings, saying that dogs represent balance, serenity, and are a "sound creature in a crazy world." One of Thurber’s most memorable dogs was an airedale terrier named Muggs, affectionately known as “The Dog That Bit People.” James’s mother Mame would bake treats every Christmas for all of the people Muggs bit—including the lieutenant governor!

As Thurber’s vision worsened later in his life, he used a magnifier called a Zeiss loupe to continue drawing on large sheets of paper. Thurber was also able to keep writing with the help of a transcriber. He had a miraculous ability to create and edit up to 2,000 words in his head at a time, which he would then dictate to be recorded on paper.

After talking for years about writing a play together, Thurber and fellow Phi Kappa Psi brother, Elliott Nugent, collaborated in 1940 on a comedy play called The Male Animal. The play became a Broadway hit and was such a success that it was turned into a movie in 1942 starring Henry Fonda and Olivia de Havilland.

In 1947, Thurber’s short story, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” was adapted into a feature film starring Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, Boris Karloff, and others. In 1960, A Thurber Carnival, a play based on Thurber’s 1945 book The Thurber Carnival and directed by Burgess Meredith, opened on Broadway. Thurber portrayed himself in 88 performances and won a Tony Award for the adapted script.

Thurber wrote dozens of books over the course of his life, including Is Sex Necessary? (1929), My Life and Hard Times (1933), The Last Flower (1939), Fables for Our Time (1940), My World and Welcome To It (1942), Many Moons (1943), The Thurber Carnival (1945), The White Deer (1945), The 13 Clocks (1950), The Thurber Album (1952), Further Fables for Our Time (1956), The Wonderful O (1957), and The Years with Ross (1959).

In the final year of his life, James Thurber’s behavior became erratic, partly from ongoing struggles with a thyroid condition. He was stricken with a blood clot in his brain in October 1961. Although Thurber underwent a successful surgery, he died on November 2, 1961 due to complications from pneumonia. He was a month shy of his 67th birthday.

James Thurber passed away in New York City, but his ashes are interred in Green Lawn Cemetery in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio. The GPS/Google Maps coordinates for Thurber's grave are N 39° 56.323 W 083° 01.980. Humans and canines are always welcome to visit.

FURTHER READING

• James Thurber: His Life and Times by Harrison Kinney (1995)

• Thurberville by Bob Hunter (2017)

• Thurber: A Biography by Burton Bernstein (1975)

• A Mile and a Half of Lines: The Art of James Thurber by Michael J. Rosen (2019)

• www.jamesthurber.org — Our sister site, managed by Thurber historian and Thurber House founding literary director Michael J. Rosen

• Original manuscripts and copies of James Thurber’s writing (published and unpublished), including novels, children’s books, stage productions, writing for The New Yorker, memoirs, and Thurber’s Columbus Dispatch column

• Original James Thurber drawings, copies, prints, photographs, tearsheets, clippings, slides, and negatives of drawings (published and unpublished)

• The original attic walls with James Thurber’s drawings on them, which were removed from his home in Newtown, Connecticut in 1976 by The Ohio State University's Professor of Thurber Studies, Lewis Branscomb

• Transcripts and recordings of interviews and speeches given by James Thurber, including television and radio interviews and award acceptance speeches

• Documents from James Thurber’s time spent at the United States embassy in Paris, including his passport

• Correspondence between James Thurber and family, friends, colleagues, and publishers

• Original photographs of Thurber and his family and friends

• Materials from James Thurber's elementary and high schools

• Photographs and clippings from James Thurber’s time at The Ohio State University

• Clippings and recordings of Thurber’s honorary degrees from Kenyon College and The Ohio State University

• Signed James Thurber books

• Articles and interviews about James Thurber

• Recordings and reviews of people reading and performing Thurber’s work and adaptations of his work, including A Thurber Carnival, the 1960 Tony Award-winning Broadway play directed by Burgess Meredith

• Recordings and scripts of Jabberwock, a play loosely based on Thurber’s life by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee

• Articles and recordings of dedications to James Thurber, including Thurber Towers and Thurber Theatre

• Portraits of James Thurber

• Modern Thurber memorabilia, including the 2012 James Thurber commemorative bobblehead