What do you think?
Rate this book
Thurber Country
This classic collection of Thurber's humor includes the twenty-six pieces published in The New Yorker that turned the writer into a legend in which the humorist explored such topics as the complexities of relationships between men and women and his correspondence with his publishers. 15,000 first printing.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1953
11 people are currently reading
210 people want to read
About the author
James Thurber
357 books608 followersThurber was born in Columbus, Ohio to Charles L. Thurber and Mary Agnes (Mame) Fisher Thurber. Both of his parents greatly influenced his work. His father, a sporadically employed clerk and minor politician who dreamed of being a lawyer or an actor, is said to have been the inspiration for the small, timid protagonist typical of many of his stories. Thurber described his mother as a "born comedienne" and "one of the finest comic talents I think I have ever known." She was a practical joker, on one occasion pretending to be crippled and attending a faith healer revival, only to jump up and proclaim herself healed.
Thurber had two brothers, William and Robert. Once, while playing a game of William Tell, his brother William shot James in the eye with an arrow. Because of the lack of medical technology, Thurber lost his eye. This injury would later cause him to be almost entirely blind. During his childhood he was unable to participate in sports and activities because of his injury, and instead developed a creative imagination, which he shared in his writings.
From 1913 to 1918, Thurber attended The Ohio State University, where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity. He never graduated from the University because his poor eyesight prevented him from taking a mandatory ROTC course. In 1995 he was posthumously awarded a degree.
From 1918 to 1920, at the close of World War I, Thurber worked as a code clerk for the Department of State, first in Washington, D.C. and then at the American Embassy in Paris, France. After this Thurber returned to Columbus, where he began his writing career as a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch from 1921 to 1924. During part of this time, he reviewed current books, films, and plays in a weekly column called "Credos and Curios," a title that later would be given to a posthumous collection of his work. Thurber also returned to Paris in this period, where he wrote for the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers.
In 1925, he moved to Greenwich Village in New York City, getting a job as a reporter for the New York Evening Post. He joined the staff of The New Yorker in 1927 as an editor with the help of his friend and fellow New Yorker contributor, E.B. White. His career as a cartoonist began in 1930 when White found some of Thurber's drawings in a trash can and submitted them for publication. Thurber would contribute both his writings and his drawings to The New Yorker until the 1950s.
Thurber was married twice. In 1922, Thurber married Althea Adams. The marriage was troubled and ended in divorce in May 1935. Adams gave Thurber his only child, his daughter Rosemary. Thurber remarried in June, 1935 to Helen Wismer. His second marriage lasted until he died in 1961, at the age of 66, due to complications from pneumonia, which followed upon a stroke suffered at his home. His last words, aside from the repeated word "God," were "God bless... God damn," according to Helen Thurber.
Thurber had two brothers, William and Robert. Once, while playing a game of William Tell, his brother William shot James in the eye with an arrow. Because of the lack of medical technology, Thurber lost his eye. This injury would later cause him to be almost entirely blind. During his childhood he was unable to participate in sports and activities because of his injury, and instead developed a creative imagination, which he shared in his writings.
From 1913 to 1918, Thurber attended The Ohio State University, where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity. He never graduated from the University because his poor eyesight prevented him from taking a mandatory ROTC course. In 1995 he was posthumously awarded a degree.
From 1918 to 1920, at the close of World War I, Thurber worked as a code clerk for the Department of State, first in Washington, D.C. and then at the American Embassy in Paris, France. After this Thurber returned to Columbus, where he began his writing career as a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch from 1921 to 1924. During part of this time, he reviewed current books, films, and plays in a weekly column called "Credos and Curios," a title that later would be given to a posthumous collection of his work. Thurber also returned to Paris in this period, where he wrote for the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers.
In 1925, he moved to Greenwich Village in New York City, getting a job as a reporter for the New York Evening Post. He joined the staff of The New Yorker in 1927 as an editor with the help of his friend and fellow New Yorker contributor, E.B. White. His career as a cartoonist began in 1930 when White found some of Thurber's drawings in a trash can and submitted them for publication. Thurber would contribute both his writings and his drawings to The New Yorker until the 1950s.
Thurber was married twice. In 1922, Thurber married Althea Adams. The marriage was troubled and ended in divorce in May 1935. Adams gave Thurber his only child, his daughter Rosemary. Thurber remarried in June, 1935 to Helen Wismer. His second marriage lasted until he died in 1961, at the age of 66, due to complications from pneumonia, which followed upon a stroke suffered at his home. His last words, aside from the repeated word "God," were "God bless... God damn," according to Helen Thurber.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
January 6, 2013
Originally published on my blog here in November 2001.
The essays in this collection, mainly written for the New Yorker in the early fifties, are typical of Thurber's gently satirical humour. Though some now seem rather dated, particularly in terms of the depiction of women, most are still very funny. Thurber had an unerring eye for little absurdities - a typical example being his dissection of the reading of lists of famous people who share a particular day as their birthday on local radio stations - and a wonderful fund of anecdotes.
While humour based on the absurdities of society is generally a transient thing - cartoons from nineteenth century magazines are uniformly unamusing today - Thurber's vision has lasted better than most, and collections of his writing are still worth reading.
The essays in this collection, mainly written for the New Yorker in the early fifties, are typical of Thurber's gently satirical humour. Though some now seem rather dated, particularly in terms of the depiction of women, most are still very funny. Thurber had an unerring eye for little absurdities - a typical example being his dissection of the reading of lists of famous people who share a particular day as their birthday on local radio stations - and a wonderful fund of anecdotes.
While humour based on the absurdities of society is generally a transient thing - cartoons from nineteenth century magazines are uniformly unamusing today - Thurber's vision has lasted better than most, and collections of his writing are still worth reading.
Read
November 26, 2018You know the baseline broadsheet magazine column – humorous mishaps the writer has undergone this week, local bickerings, the ongoing arguments with a long-suffering spouse? Now, imagine one of those that's worth reading. A feat to rival the wildest cosmic imaginings of Olaf Stapledon or William Hope Hodgson, I know. But you're not done yet: imagine one whose collected edition would still be worth reading, in another country, decades hence. The improbable proof of this wild premise is a battered paperback I've just finished. Wry, witty and self-deprecating in exactly the way I know some people would find unbearably smug, it's determinedly minor work, and yet it still entertains, still offers solace and even wisdom in a world where all the old certainties which underpinned it have, for better and worse, evaporated like dew. Granted, the parallel to columns as we know them isn't exact: the pieces are longer, and more openly fictionalised, meaning they arguably approach the status of sketches or even oblique short stories. But to approach them in that spirit might be a disappointment when they're so thoroughly and perfectly riffs on whatever took Thurber's fancy as a deadline neared.
(Yes, I'm pretty sure I've said something along similar lines before – maybe for a collection of Chesterton's journalism, or Ransome's? But fuck it, if you can't recycle material when writing about columnists, where can you?)
(Yes, I'm pretty sure I've said something along similar lines before – maybe for a collection of Chesterton's journalism, or Ransome's? But fuck it, if you can't recycle material when writing about columnists, where can you?)
August 21, 2024
The battle between the sexes features prominently in this book. I read it hoping to find enjoyable humor but sadly it is dated and not very amusing - at least, I didn't find it so.
Of course, it is copyrighted 1953 and some of the selections were written in the 1940's, so perhaps I should have expected it. The illustrations (line drawings) were charming.
Of course, it is copyrighted 1953 and some of the selections were written in the 1940's, so perhaps I should have expected it. The illustrations (line drawings) were charming.
June 9, 2015
This collection of Thurber's 1950s work has been sitting on my shelves since I bought it when I was living in Conway, Arkansas, in 1993, according to my scrawl on the first page, when I was a cub reporter at the Log Cabin Democrat. Well, I finally got round to finishing it today, a good 20 years after meaning to. I have to say, I'm not sure the collection has weathered the passage of time all that well. Too many of the stories seem stuck in a bygone age of tedious cocktail parties, cruises of Europe, and consternation at the antics of those peculiar creatures called women. But in amongst the filler are some real gems of humorous short stories, notably File and Forget, a hilarious collection of letters that reaches Monty Python levels of absurdity and The Figgerin' of Aunt Wilma which inspired me to write the short story I am not a Foreigner (available free to subscribers of my newsletter). And then there are his line-drawing cartoons, which surely influenced Kurt Vonnegut, when I think about it. I'll probably keep Thurber Country around for another good 20 years and if so, I'll add another star. Promise.
July 18, 2015
This is a collection of magazine articles of a humourous nature, published in the middle of the last century.
The first half of the book has some mildly amusing pieces, but it becomes more difficult to see anything very funny in the later ones. Mostly, this is kind of a time capsule that describes an American social type of a very particular era. Thurber was evidently of the class that had servants, went to cocktail parties and travelled by ocean liner, so it's pretty difficult to relate to him - or his audience for that matter. Everyone in Thurber's world is wealthy, middle aged, married, and appallingly bourgeois. Although he describes international travel and a lifestyle that seems pretty exotic (living in Juan les Pins and Bermuda, for example), he somehow manages to make it sound about as exciting as a day trip to Bognor with Mrs Thurber.
The first half of the book has some mildly amusing pieces, but it becomes more difficult to see anything very funny in the later ones. Mostly, this is kind of a time capsule that describes an American social type of a very particular era. Thurber was evidently of the class that had servants, went to cocktail parties and travelled by ocean liner, so it's pretty difficult to relate to him - or his audience for that matter. Everyone in Thurber's world is wealthy, middle aged, married, and appallingly bourgeois. Although he describes international travel and a lifestyle that seems pretty exotic (living in Juan les Pins and Bermuda, for example), he somehow manages to make it sound about as exciting as a day trip to Bognor with Mrs Thurber.
April 23, 2023
"Thurber Country" is a classic collection of Thurber pieces. There are a few pieces that are hilarious (in particular, "File and Forget", which supposedly collects letters between Thurber and a publisher, though I find it hard to believe that the letters are real); a few that are funny but very much relics of their time (how can anyone these days relate to the man in "Lady in a Trap" who has apparently never been in his kitchen, or apparently any kitchen, before?); a few that involve Thurber verbally jousting at cocktail parties (including, appropriately enough, "What Cocktail Party", which is mainly about "The Cocktail Party", a play by TS Eliot that you don't have to know anything about to appreciate the story); a few that are about language (including "Do You Want to Make Something Out of It", about Thurber's favorite word game, superghosts); a few that are parodies (though I think the parodies here aren't his best); a few that are biographical (including one from his childhood, "The Figgering of Aunt Wilma", and one from his travels in France, "The Girls in the Closet"); and a few that aren't funny at all ("Teacher's Pet" is actually somewhat disturbing). Plus, it's liberally salted with illustrations by Thurber, though there are no cartoons. It's not my absolute favorite Thurber collection -- that's still "My World, and Welcome To It" -- but it's a perfectly fine introduction to his work, and a collection that any Thurber fan will be happy not just to read but to come back to.
November 29, 2018
Al sinds m'n jeugd ben ik een fan van James Thurber. In de middelbare school maakte ik, denk ik, kennis met één van z'n kortverhalen. En toen aan de universiteit het Walter Mitty-verhaal in de les passeerde, groeide m'n bewondering voor de journalist-schrijver-tekenaar. Ik gebruikte dan ook één van z'n kortverhalen voor een stageles Engels, toen ik nog met het idee speelde om leerkracht te worden. Gelukkig voor mij, en zeker voor de jongeren die van mij les hebben zouden gekregen, is daar niets van terechtgekomen. Heel veel van Thurber heb ik niet gelezen, al koop ik alles wat ik van hem tegenkom. Een paar weken geleden nog, vond ik deze Penguin-paperback in de Brusselse Pêle-Mêle, een nogal rommelige tweedehandsboekenwinkel - zijn er andere? - die z'n activiteiten omschrijft als 'recyclage culturel'. Ik betaalde er amper 1 euro voor; een veel te laag bedrag voor het leesplezier dat het boekje verschaft. Hoewel sommige stukjes misschien wat taai zijn, en zeker getuigen van een leefstijl die vandaag anders is, zijn andere stukjes nog altijd ontzettend grappig. Een stand-up comedian vindt in de paperback gerust materiaal voor een avondvullende voorstelling. En het laatste stukje uit de bundel, een van de beste, over Thurbers ervaringen als reiziger, kan moeiteloos naast David Foster Wallaces cruise-reportage staan. Geen wonder dat Kees van Kooten een fan is.
November 9, 2024
I loved Thurber when I was a kid. There was a lot of his work lying around my grandparents' house, where I was always allowed to read instead of socialize if that was what I wanted to do. I rescued this book from the home of my parents, who had in turn rescued it from my grandparents. Half a century after I first read it, I was horrified to discover how sexist and misogynist it was. I kept on reading, hoping each new essay would be the one where I found the old Thurber I had loved. There were moments of absolute brilliance, and the sentences were finely constructed. Occasionally a man was clearly less mature than his wife. The misogyny, though, just didn't let up. I finally had to stop 2/3 of the way through, and I almost never do that. Sigh.
September 9, 2019
Turn off your television and read this book
Frankly, this is about the best book I have ever read. I find it astonishing that at this time (February 2016) less than 70 reviews have been posted on Amazon of the various editions.
Such anecdotes as “The Catbird Seat,” “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” “The Day the Dam Broke,” and “The Night the Bed Fell,” to name only a few, are memorable bits of merriment. And, what about the thinger for the things contained?
We are just getting started on the fun!
Thurber’s doodles are a joy to behold!
So, order this book, turn off your television and enjoy yourself.
December 19, 2024
Thurber Country, James Thurber (1894-1961), 1949, 277 pages, ISBN 0743233409
Uneven. 25 mostly New Yorker articles. Some of it's very funny. Where Thurber loses face or his own behavior is bad, it's embarrassing. No idea what to make of a parody of an obscure and inscrutable literary-magazine writer who died three generations ago. "The Figgerin' of Aunt Wilma" is a neat peek at life in 1905. A true horror is revealed in the introduction to the 2002 edition: His older brother shot James Thurber in the eye, permanently blinding him, playing William Tell with bow and arrow, when James was seven.
It's desolater than you think. p. 228.
Uneven. 25 mostly New Yorker articles. Some of it's very funny. Where Thurber loses face or his own behavior is bad, it's embarrassing. No idea what to make of a parody of an obscure and inscrutable literary-magazine writer who died three generations ago. "The Figgerin' of Aunt Wilma" is a neat peek at life in 1905. A true horror is revealed in the introduction to the 2002 edition: His older brother shot James Thurber in the eye, permanently blinding him, playing William Tell with bow and arrow, when James was seven.
It's desolater than you think. p. 228.
November 30, 2017
Thurber is great at making hilarious stuff out of simple ideas, and that means of course that not everything is amazing because some of the ideas aren't great. That said, on a whole, his work is fun, light-hearted, and often insightful.
December 9, 2021
This is one of those books that just isn't for me. I couldn't see or find the humor in any of these stories, it was entirely too dated, sexist, and frankly, uninteresting. Feels like a relic of its time.
June 30, 2023
Disappointing. I only knew a couple of the novellas for children. This is a book of essays, initially articles in the New Yorker. There’s a deep seam of sexism running through them and often the personality shown is unpleasant.
June 17, 2020
It’s strange that he started this book with a critique of how to write humor, and then followed that with some party stories told by a man who thinks he’s more interesting than he is.
September 2, 2025
Hilarious as usual, yet this one did not have the timeless quality of My Life and Hard Times.
December 15, 2010
JT is not on top of his game here. If this were the first thing I read by him, I probably wouldn't be ravenous for more. There are a few good stories, some of them quite dark. And there's a great piece about making up words. I'd recommend this for Thurber fans but not for many others.
February 3, 2009
Not my favorite work of Thurber's, but a good one nonetheless.
October 27, 2009
Oh man. How funny is this guy?
August 2, 2011
Some of Thurber's funniest material.
May 13, 2013
I liked some of the essays. Disliked others. Definitely feels dated -- but interesting, too, for the same reason perhaps.
September 25, 2023
It was okay. I thought it would be funnier.
December 18, 2008
humorous vinettes and males and females
June 27, 2014
4.5 out of 5
April 21, 2017
For me, this was a hit-or-miss collection of essays/articles. I'm not sure if they simply haven't aged well or if I was missing too many inside references to the times, but some made for difficult reading. Others were amusing and classic Thurber.
Read
March 17, 2019Curmudgeonly cartoonist James Thurber offers insight into life, relationships, marriage, and misunderstandings between well meaning people.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews