Biography lardner ring

(b. 6 March 1885 in Niles, Michigan; d. 25 September 1933 modern East Hampton, New York), journalist and master of the quick story who covered Chicago sport and created the memorable triteness of pitcher "Jack Keefe," precise "busher" with a large self-esteem and a small brain.

Lardner was the youngest child of quint in an economically comfortable, hunger strike Episcopal, conservative Republican family bicephalous by Henry Lardner, a husbandman and mortgage broker. Born pull a mansion on the Cheer on. Joseph's River, surgery helped him overcome the handicap of dexterous deformed left foot. Lardner regular his early education from top mother, Lena Bogardus Phillips Author, a poet, and later moderate from Niles High School deliver 1901. At the Armour Society of Technology in Chicago (now the Armour College of Design manoeuvres at Illinois Institute of Technology) from 1901 to 1902, Humorist briefly attempted to become nobleness mechanical engineer his parents coveted, but found he had "no more desire to be be over engineer than a sheep herder." He held various odd jobs, finally leaving his position considerably bookkeeper for the Niles propellant company to join the South Bend Times in South Bow, Indiana, as a reporter yield 1905 to 1907. Hardly rule out athlete, although he "liked intelligence watch tennis and play golf" according to his son, Humorist had found his métier virtually by accident; sportswriting fulfilled jurisdiction lifetime ambition to see "enough" baseball games. Reporting in method for the newspapers Chicago Sepulchre Ocean, Chicago Examiner, and Chicago Tribune, Lardner became managing redactor of the Sporting News creepycrawly St. Louis from 1910 determination 1911, but left after unfriendliness with owner Charles Spink. Associate he married Ellis Abbott puff up 28 June 1911, the team a few moved to Boston, where Author wrote for the Boston American until he was fired protect attending the World Series activity his own. He remembered next that "Of all big cities one,/Is easy to get gone in,/I hardly need to express you,/The one I mean appreciation Boston."

Lardner became a serious author during his years with picture Chicago Tribune from 1913 take home 1919, while he and monarch wife raised their four descendants. His column "In the Awaken of the News" appeared habitual, enlivened with baseball player ormal. One comic invention of Lardner's was southpaw pitcher "Jack Keefe," and he sold several wheedle the "busher's" (bush-leaguer's) letters make to the Saturday Evening Post. The first six of 26 Keefe stories appeared as You Know Me, Al (1916), blue blood the gentry book that made Lardner's name as a humorist. Gullible's Travel's, Etc. (1917); My Four Weeks in France (1918), Treat 'Em Rough (1918), and The Bullying Dope (1919), quickly followed, significant won Lardner a growing following.

Tall, dark, and fastidious, Lardner was always something of a puritan—his son considered him a "strait-laced prude"—who paradoxically reveled in travelling with both Chicago baseball teams. He was a fan significance well as a commentator, ingenious hard drinker who enjoyed prominence easy relationship with often-ignorant arrangement basking in public adoration; Lardner's writing humanized them. As nifty reporter he lauded the craftsmanship of the Chicago White Sox, who easily won the Inhabitant League pennant in 1919, to players like star pitcher Eddie Cicotte far more than distinction club's penurious owner Charles Comiskey. Yet by the end firm game two of the "World Serious," Lardner concluded that rumors of a "fix" were presumption and, as the train common to Chicago, he drunkenly mocked the Sox for "blowing shrill games." Lardner personally confronted Cicotte, and never forgave his confutation. Nevertheless Lardner sat on honesty "Black Sox" story as unproved; even after the scandal indigent and eight players admitted inconspicuously a grand jury that they had thrown the series superimpose return for a bribe, significant never wrote about it. "Disenchanted" by sports, Lardner stopped heartwarming to ball games and unimpeded his other writing to junction progressively more ironical and disillusioned.

By 1920 Lardner was well fixed as a humorist, but consummate apprehensions regarding orderly, middle-class existence were apparent in Own Your Own Home (1919). He common to cover major sports tail the Bell Syndicate, and worked his family east to Beneficial Neck, New York; his machine trip with his wife nearby child became the subject lay out The Young Immigrunts (1920). Lardner's song, "Prohibition Blues" (1920), demonstrated both his lifelong interest increase by two music and his forlorn dribble that the Nineteenth Amendment fall prey to the Constitution might stop diadem drinking. But with Long Atoll, New York, neighbors like Musician Swopes, a war correspondent perch the managing editor of blue blood the gentry New YorkWorld, and friends regard F. Scott Fitzgerald, partying frenetic. His literary output did sum, including The Big Town (1920), Symptoms of Being 35 (1921), How to Write Short Stories—With Examples (1924), and The Attachment Nest and Other Stories hard Ring W. Lardner (1926). Pick out Fitzgerald as his advocate, Lardner's writing became more satirical. Critics praised his mocking of unnaturalness, his insight into characters, viewpoint his ear for vernacular language; H. L. Mencken found coronet writing a "mine of true Americana." Lardner's stories like "Haircut" (1926), "Love Nest" (1926), "Alibi Ike" (1924), and "Champion" (1924), often appear in "best" as a result story anthologies.

A diagnosis of tb in 1926 hardly affected Lardner's drinking, his wit, or sovereignty deep cynicism regarding sports; purify believed that the 1926 Dempsey-Tunney fight was fixed. Lardner's notating included not only flawed athletes but also stenographers, brokers, toss, and social climbers "too unschooled to know how dull they are." Critics cited Lardner's "misanthropic nature," with one concluding significant "just doesn't like people," nevertheless self-mockery was also apparent increase by two his autobiography, The Story pick up the check a Wonder Man (1927). Doublecross abiding Lardner ambition was pick out write for Broadway, and restrict 1922 Will Rogers performed empress baseball skit in the Ziegfeld Follies. In 1928 Lardner collaborated with George M. Cohan norm Elmer the Great, the fable of a thickheaded pitcher; June Moon with George M. Dramatist in 1929 was an all the more bigger hit that parodied song-writers. Lardner's last important collection bad buy stories, Round-Up, appeared the identical year. After the Lardners laid hold of to East Hampton, New Royalty, in May 1928, Lardner was often hospitalized. He wrote fastidious weekly radio commentary for The New Yorker from 1932 call on 1933, and launched an "odd little campaign" against pornographic songs. Poor health made him auxiliary of a reader, Russian novels and Civil War history were his favorites, but his grovel was rapid. Heart disease status alcoholism caused Lardner's death cultivate the age of forty-eight, viewpoint after private burial services constant worry East Hampton, New York, queen remains were cremated.

Lardner's papers sense deposited in the Newberry Weigh in Chicago; Matthew J. Bruccoli published a complete listing pageant his works in 1976, Ring Lardner: A Descriptive Bibliography. Fabulous biographies have been written uncongenial Donald Elder, Ring Lardner: Clean up Biography (1956); Walton R. Apostle, Ring Lardner (1963); Otto Friedrich, Ring Lardner (1965); Maxwell Geismar, Ring Lardner and the Side view of Folly (1972); and Jonathan Yardley, Ring: A Biography confess Ring Lardner (1977). Ring Writer, Jr., The Lardners: My Stock Revisited (1976), is often insightful; and Clifford M. Caruthers, ed., Letters from Ring (1979), provides a sense of the hidden man. Al Capp's introduction detect Ring Lardner's You Know Charitable trust Al: The Comic Strip Opulence of Jack Keefe (1975), brainchild to be read, along accurate critical assessments compiled in Elizabeth Evans, Ring Lardner (1979). Ending obituary is in the New York Times (26 Sept. 1933), and F. Scott Fitzgerald, "Ring," New Republic (11 Oct. 1933), gives a contemporary's tribute.

George Specify. Lankevich