Cover of The 13 Clocks

The 13 Clocks

by James Thurber, Marc Simont, Neil Gaiman

3.9
(45 ratings)
130 pages1950Simon & SchusterISBN 9780671721008
darkfunnylightheartedfast

About this book

"There has never been anything like this before, and there will never be anything like this again…[Thurber] takes such delight in the words. It's like it's written by somebody who wants to infect you with his love of words. There are poems hidden in the text. There are places where it wanders into rhyme and out again. There are all of the invented words. The story itself is nonsense in the finest possible way." —Neil Gaiman, interviewed in The Wall Street Journal

Publication Details

Publisher
Simon & Schuster
Published
1950
Pages
130
ISBN
9780671721008
Language
en

About James Thurber

The author of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and the creator of numerous New Yorker magazine cover cartoons, was born in Columbus, Ohio on December, 8, 1894. One of the foremost American humorists of the 20th century, his inimitable wit and pithy prose spanned a breadth of genres, including short stories, modern commentary, fiction, children's fantasy and letters. Thurber's father, Charles, was a civil clerk, and his mother, Mame, was an eccentric woman who would influence many of her son's stories. Thurber had two brothers, William and Robert. One day while playing "William Tell" with them as youngsters, Thurber lost the sight in one eye when an arrow pierced it. Ultimately, he would go blind in both eyes, but that never stopped him from writing or drawing. Thurber CarnivalFrom 1913-1917, Thurber attended the Ohio State University where he was a member of 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 eye injury, Thurber was not able to complete a compulsory ROTC course so OSU would not let him graduate, although they did give him an honorary degree later. Thurber launched his professional writing career as a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch in 1920. He began writing for the New Yorker in 1927 after friend E.B. White (Charlotte's Web) got him a job at the magazine. Thurber started as an editor for the magazine but quickly became a writer. His career as a cartoonist began in 1930, when White dug some of Thurber's drawings out of the trash and submitted them to be published in the New Yorker. Thurber wrote nearly forty books and won a Tony Award for his popular Broadway play, A Thurber Carnival, in which he often starred as himself. Thurber died of complications from pneumonia on November 2, 1961. --Thurberhouse.org

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