Will Cuppy, American Satirist: A BiographyBack in the golden age of humor books (late 1920s-early 1950s), when wits of the pantheon like Robert Benchley, James Thurber, and S.J. Perelman were producing their signature works, there was another singular satirist who more than held his own with such fast company: Will Cuppy (1884-1949). This factual funnyman's metier is dark comedy that flirts with nihilism. His agenda is baldly stated in such classic Cuppy book titles as How to Be a Hermit (1929), How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes (1931), and The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950). This biography doubles as a critical study of a satirist whose shish-kebabing of humanity was often done through the veiled anthropomorphic use of animals. For a biographer, Will Cuppy represents a treasure trove of possibilities. He was a great humorist, and most of his best work is still in print, but until now he has never been the subject of a book-length study. His mesmerizingly complex and eccentric private life almost trumps the comic accomplishments of his public persona. |
Contents
Foreword by Mark Massé | 1 |
Preface and Acknowledgments | 5 |
One Hoosier Childhood 18841902 | 9 |
Two University of Chicago Years 19021914 | 23 |
Isabel Peterson | 38 |
Four Writing How to Be a Hermit | 53 |
Five Early Greenwich Village Years Groucho Marx and How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes | 75 |
Six Easing into the 1930s and Two More Important Friendships | 89 |
Eight Here Come Cuppys Mystery Anthologies of the 1940s | 123 |
Nine The Years Leading to SuicideLiterally How to Become Extinct and Still Attract the Wombat | 140 |
Ten Enhancing a Legacy by Way of Posthumous Publications | 158 |
Comparing Cuppy to Some of His Comic Contemporaries | 174 |
Chapter Notes | 185 |
| 198 | |
| 211 | |
Seven Cuppys Multifaceted 1930s | 103 |