Ring Lardner
Ring Lardner | |
---|---|
East Hampton, New York, U.S. | |
Occupation | Writer, journalist |
Spouse | Ellis Abbot |
Children | John, James, Ring Jr., and David |
Ringgold Wilmer Lardner (March 6, 1885
Early life
Ring Lardner was born in
In childhood he wore a brace for his deformed foot until he was eleven. He had a passion for
Career
This section needs additional citations for verification. (December 2021) |
Syndicated writing
Lardner started his writing career as a sports columnist, finding work with the newspaper
In 1913, Lardner returned to the Chicago Tribune, which became the home newspaper for his syndicated column In the Wake of the News (started by Hugh Keough, who had died in 1912). The column appeared in more than 100 newspapers, and is still published in the Tribune. Lardner's Tribune and syndicated writing was not exclusively sports-related: his dispatches from/near the World War One front were collected in the book My Four Weeks in France, and his immersive coverage of the 1920 Democratic Convention resulted in Lardner receiving 0.5 votes on the 23rd ballot.
Books and stories
In 1916, Lardner published his first successful book, You Know Me Al, an epistolary novel written in the form of letters by "Jack Keefe", a bush-league baseball player, to a friend back home. The letters made much use of the fictional author's idiosyncratic vernacular. It had initially been published as six separate but interrelated short stories in The Saturday Evening Post, causing some to classify the book as a collection of stories, others as a novel. Like most of Lardner's stories, You Know Me Al employs satire.
Journalist
Sarah Bembrey has written about a singular event in Lardner's sportswriting experience: "In 1919 something happened that changed his way of reporting about sports and changed his love for baseball. This was the
Lardner later published such stories as "Haircut", "Some Like Them Cold", "The Golden Honeymoon", "Alibi Ike", and "A Day with Conrad Green". He also continued to write follow-up stories to You Know Me Al, with the protagonist of that book, the headstrong, egotistical but gullible Jack Keefe, experiencing various ups and downs in his major league career and in his personal life. Private Keefe's World War I training camp letters home to his friend Al were collected in the book Treat 'Em Rough: Letters From Jack the Kaiser Killer. The sequel, The Real Dope, followed Keefe overseas to the trenches in France. He then returned home to pitch for the 1919 Chicago White Sox, but the sequence of stories closed with Keefe being traded to the Philadelphia A's before the 1919 World Series -- Jack Keefe, whatever his flaws, would not be involved in the Black Sox scandal. Lardner returned to the character when he wrote the continuity for a daily You Know Me Al comic strip that ran from 1922 to 1925.
Theatre and music
Lardner also had a lifelong fascination with the theatre, although his only Broadway three-act successes were the thrice-filmed Elmer, the Great, co-written with George M. Cohan, and June Moon, a comedy authored with Broadway veteran George S. Kaufman. Lardner also wrote skits for the Ziegfeld Follies and a series of brief nonsense plays that ridiculed the conventions of the theatre, using zany humor and outrageous, impossible stage directions, such as "The curtain is lowered for seven days to denote the lapse of a week."[citation needed]
He was a dedicated composer and lyricist: both his first (Zanzibar (1903)) and last (June Moon (1929)) published stage works included several Lardner tunes. He wrote at least one recorded song for Bert Williams, co-wrote one for Nora Bayes, and provided the lyrics for the song "That Old Quartet" (1913) by Nathaniel D. Mann. Other collaborators of note included Aubrey Stauffer, Jerome Kern on Very Good Eddie (1915), and Vincent Youmans—with whom he toiled on the Ziegfeld–Marilyn Miller–Asstores musical, Smiles (1930).[citation needed][5]
Legacy
Lardner's books were published by Maxwell Perkins, who also edited Lardner's most important contemporaries, including Fitzgerald who, unlike Hemingway,[6] also became Lardner's friend. Although Lardner held his own short stories in sufficiently low regard—he did not save copies and had to get them from the magazines that had first published them to compile a book[7]—Lardner influenced several of his more famous peers:
- In some respects, Lardner was the model for the tragic character Abe North in Fitzgerald's last completed novel, Tender Is the Night.[8]
- Lardner also influenced Ernest Hemingway, who sometimes wrote articles for his high school newspaper using the pseudonym Ring Lardner, Jr.[9]
- Lardner's gift for dialogue heavily influenced the writer John O'Hara, who said he learned from reading Lardner "that if you wrote down speech as it is spoken truly, you produce true characters, and the opposite is also true: if your characters don't talk like people they aren't good characters" and added, "[I]t's the attribute most lacking in American writers and almost totally lacking in the British."[10]
Cultural references
- J. D. Salinger referred to Lardner in two of his works, The Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey. In the former work, protagonist Holden Caulfield says: "My favorite author is my brother D.B. and my next favorite is Ring Lardner".
- Wayne C. Booth mentioned Lardner's famous short story "Haircut" in his essay "Telling and Showing."[11]
- In his movie Black Sox scandal, writer-director John Sayles portrayed Lardner as one of the clear-eyed observers who was not taken in by the conspiracy. In one scene, Lardner strolls through the White Sox train, singing a parody of the song "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles," changed to "I'm Forever Throwing Ballgames."[12]
- The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame inducted Lardner in 2016.[13]
- Harry Turtledove describes his short story "Batboy" as a Ring Lardner pastiche.[14]
- Neil Simon references Ring Lardner in his play Brighton Beach Memoirs.
- In John DeChancie's novel Castle for Rent, Lord Incarnadine mentions having been friends with Ring Lardner.
- In Sam Halpert's semi-autobiographical novel about a navigator in the 91st Bomb Group, A Real Good War (1997), the narrator mentions reading Lardner, and specifically refers to "Haircut".
Personal life
Lardner married Ellis Abbott of
Lardner died on September 25, 1933, at the age of 48 in
Lardner's grand-nephew is George Lardner Jr., a journalist at The Washington Post from 1963 and a 1993 Pulitzer Prize winner.[22]
Works
Plays
- Lardner, Ring W. (April 2001). Topping, Scott A. (ed.). An Annotated Edition of Short Plays. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Western Michigan University.
A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty o f The Graduate College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree o f Doctor of Philosophy Department of English
- Zanzibar: A Comic Opera in Two Acts (1903) (With Harry Schmidt)
- In Allah's Garden
- March 6th, 1914. The Home-Coming of Chas. A Comiskey, John J. McGraw, and James J. Callahan (1914) (With Edward G. Heeman)[28]
Books
- Bib Ballads. P. F. Volland. 1915. ISBN 978-0-598-74455-5. (Illustrated by Fontaine Fox)
- You Know Me Al – A Busher’s Letters (1916)
- You Know Me Al: A Busher's Letters. George H. Doran Company. 1916. ISBN 978-1-5369-8910-6.
- You Know Me Al: A Busher's Letters. George H. Doran Company. 1916.
- Gullible's Travels, Etc. Bobbs-Merrill Company. 1917. (Illustrated by May Wilson Preston)
- Treat 'em Rough: Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer. ISBN 978-0-598-77984-7.
- My Four Weeks in France. 1918. (Illustrated by Wallace Morgan)
- The Real Dope. Bobbs-Merrill Company. 1919. (Illustrated by May Wilson Preston; M. L. Blumenthal)
- Regular Fellows I Have Met. B.A. Wilmot. 1919. ISBN 978-0-598-73898-1.
- Own Your Own Home. ISBN 978-0-598-76316-7. (Illustrated by Fontaine Fox)
- The Young Immigrunts.
- Symptoms of Being 35. Bobbs-Merrill Company. 1921. (Illustrated by Helen E. Jacoby)
- The Big Town: How I and the Mrs. Go to New York to See Life and Get Katie a Husband. So This Is New York)
- Say It With Oil / Say It With Bricks: A Few Remarks about Wives. George H. Doran Company. 1923. ISBN 978-0-598-49737-6. (With Nina Wilcox Putnam)
- How to Write Short Stories – With Samples. ISBN 978-0-403-01063-9. (Includes Champion – adapted as the 1949 film)
- What of It?. Charles Scribner's Sons. 1925.
- Charles Scribner's Sons Present Ring W Lardner In The Golden Honeymoon And Haircut (1926)
- The Love Nest: And Other Stories. Charles Scribner's Sons. 1926.
- The Story of a Wonder Man: Being the Autobiography of Ring Lardner. ISBN 978-0-598-59109-8. (Illustrated by Margaret Freeman)
- Round Up: The Stories of Ring W. Lardner (1929)
- Stop Me – If You’ve Heard This One (1929)
- June Moon (1929) (With George S. Kaufman)
- First and Last. ISBN 978-0-598-58940-8. (With Gilbert SeldesPreface)
- The Best Short Stories of Ring Lardner. ISBN 0-684-18363-3. The front cover photograph of Ring Lardner at a typewriter is annotated "The work of a stupendous genius... only good for another century or so." —Jimmy Breslin
- The Best Short Stories of Ring Lardner. Chatto & Windus. 1959.
- Shut Up, He Explained (1962) (Edited by Henry Morgan, Babette Rosmond)
- Ring Around Max: The Correspondence of Ring Lardner and Max Perkins(1973) (Edited by Clifford Caruthers)
- Letters from Ring (1979) (Edited by Clifford Caruthers; Foreword by Ring Lardner, Jr.)
- Ring Lardner's You Know Me Al: The Comic Strip Adventures of Jack Keefe (1979) (Preface By Al Capp Illustrated by Will B. Johnstone Dick Dorgan)
- Ring Around the Bases: The Complete Baseball Stories of Ring Lardner. Matthew Bruccoli)
- Letters of Ring Lardner (1995) (Edited by Clifford Caruthers)
- Hilton, George W., ed. (1995). The Annotated Baseball Stories of Ring W. Lardner, 1914-1919. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-2963-5.
- Selected Stories. Penguin. 1 May 1997. ISBN 978-0-14-118018-2.
- The Lost Journalism of Ring Lardner. ISBN 978-0-8032-6973-6. (Edited by Ron Rapoport Foreword James Lardner)
- Rapoport, Ron, ed. (2024). Frank Chance's Diamond: The Baseball Journalism of Ring Lardner. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4930-8099-1.
Essays and other contributions
- Lardner, Ring (April 18, 1925). "The constant Jay". The New Yorker. Vol. 1, no. 9. p. 20.
See also
- Donald Elder, author of Ring Lardner, A Biography
References
- better source needed]
- ^ a b Lardner, Ring. Ring Lardner Reader. Scribners.p. xiv
- ^ a b Bembrey, Sarah, ed. (Fall 1999). "Ring Lardner, Sr". The Lardner Dynasty. Interactive Media Lab, University of Florida. Archived from the original on 2018-04-21. Retrieved 2008-03-22.
- ^ Ferguson, Andrew (2 December 2006). "Five Best: Laughter that Lasts". The Wall Street Journal. p. P8. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 3 December 2006.
- ^ "Smiles (Broadway Production)". IBDB Internet Broadway Database. May 24, 2023. Retrieved May 24, 2023.
- ^ Bruccoli, Matthew J., ed. (1996). The Only Thing That Counts: The Ernest Hemingway - Maxwell Perkins Correspondence. Scribner.
- ISBN 978-0-399-58483-1.
- ^ Gelfant, Blanche H. (and Lawrence Graver) (2004) The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-century American Short Story, Columbia University Press. (See Ring Lardner, p.322)
- ^ "Lardner Connections: Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Leyner, McMillan, Newman". tridget.com. 18 March 2006.
- ^ O'Hara, 1952, foreword to Appointment in Samarra, The Modern Library, 1994.
- ISBN 0-226-06556-1.
- ^ Eight Men Out Movie Review, DVD Release Archived 2008-03-10 at the Wayback Machine, Filmcritic.com
- ^ "Ring Lardner". Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. 2016. Retrieved 2017-10-08.
- OCLC 28124415.
- ^ The James Lardner memorial fund (1939). "Somebody had to do something: a memorial to James Phillips Lardner". searchworks.stanford.edu. Retrieved 25 January 2023.
- )
- ^ Ring Lardner (Jr.), Jay Allen, Jesús Hernández, Valentín R. González, Plantin Press, Vincent Sheean, Dolores Ibárruri Castelao (1939). Somebody Had to Do Something: A Memorial to James Phillips Lardner. Los Angeles: James Lardner Memorial Fund. p. 41.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ "HEMINGWAY, ERNEST, et al. Somebody Had to Do Something A Memorial to James Phillips Lardner. Los Angeles The James Lardner Memorial Fund, 1939". Bonhams. Retrieved 25 January 2023.
- christies.com. Retrieved 25 January 2023.
- ^ Roth, Katherine (February 11, 2000). "Ring Lardner Jr., blacklisted Oscar winner, dies at age 85". The Literature Network. Chicago Sun-Times.
- ^ "Ring Lardner Dies; Noted as Writer".
- ^ "For Feature Writing, by George Lardner Jr. for his unflinching examination of his daughter's murder by a violent man who had slipped through the criminal justice system". General Information: History of The Post.
- ^ Library of Congress Copyright Office (1913). Catalog of Copyright Entries. U.S. Government Printing Office.
- tcm.com. Retrieved 25 January 2023.
- ^ File:Oh, You September Morn.pdf
- ^ "Aubrey Stauffer". Myers Genealogy. 14 May 2007.
- jhu.edu. Retrieved 25 January 2023.
- ^ Lardner, Ring W.; Heeman, Edward G. (March 6, 1914). "The Home Coming of Chas. Comiskey, John J. McGraw, and James J. Callahan". biblio. Chicago: Edward G. Heeman. Retrieved 25 January 2023.
- ^ The Young Immigrunts. Bobbs-Merrill Company. 1920. (Internet Archive)
- ^ The Young Immigrunts. Bobbs-Merrill Company. 1920. (Internet Archive)
Sources
- Bisbee Daily Review. Bisbee, Arizona. Newspaper Enterprise Association. p. 4.
External links
- Lardnermania – An Appreciation of Ring W. Lardner and his Work
- Works by Ring Lardner at Google Books
- Baseball Hall of Fame – Spink Award recipient
- Ring Lardner Papers at the Newberry Library
Online editions
- Works by Ring Lardner at Project Gutenberg
- Works by Ring Lardner at Faded Page (Canada)
- Works by or about Ring Lardner at Internet Archive
- The Golden Honeymoon by Ring Lardner at The Short Story Project
- Works by Ring Lardner at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)