Nelson Rockefeller's Copy of The Lonely Ones by William Steig

New Yorker cartoonist William Steig's book of drawings The Lonely Ones was published in 1942. The book has a foreword by The New Yorker's drama critic Wolcott Gibbs. Steig inscribed a copy to Nelson Rockefeller, the son of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the grandson of the founder of Standard Oil. Nelson Rockefeller was an avid art collector and patron of the arts. An AbeBooks listing of the book informs us that Rockefeller kept a woodcarving by Steig on his desk in New York. Steig wrote, "Best wishes to / Nelson Rockefeller / from / William Steig / I hope you like these / drawings." Did the future Governor of New York and Vice President of the United States appreciate them? The AbeBooks seller, First Edition Rare Books, LLC, of Cincinnatti, notes that "This copy appears unread"—so, asked and answered.

William Steig
AbeBooks listing accessed June 29, 2026

https://www.abebooks.com/signed-first-edition/Lonely-Foreword-Wolcott-Gibbs-Steig-William/32467844220/bd

William Steig
AbeBooks item description

Note:  William Steig's woodcarvings are new to me. In 1939, Time magazine wrote about an exhibition of these pieces here. His Proud Woman from 1941 is in the collection of the Rhode Island School of Design Museum here. An example appears on Artsy here. There is another on Reddit here. Now, does anyone have a photograph of the one Nelson Rockefeller kept on his desk?

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Mary Lou's Copy of Addams and Evil by Charles Addams

Mary Low's copy of Addams and Evil (1947) was personalized for her a decade after publication by cartoonist Charles Addams. He included an original drawing of the Addams Family member we know today as Uncle Fester. He is mostly hidden behind a block of text, but what is revealed is worthy of note.

"For Mary Low
with best wishes
Chas Addams
New York           
1957"             

The dust jacket is a facsimile. The books is offered by Arundel Books of Seattle at $2,750.

Charles Addams
AbeBooks listing accessed December 9, 2022

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31274847611&searchurl=kn%3DCharles%2BAddams%26sgnd%3Don%26sortby%3D1&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-image9

Note:  Images of original book sketches by Charles Addams, such as this one of Uncle Fester, are welcome here on Attempted Bloggery. There's already quite a fetching assortment in the archives.

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Cast of Characters Signed by Thomas Vinciguerra

Last week I attended a reading by Thomas Vinciguerra from his new book Cast of Characters (2016), ten years in the writing. It is about the quirky folks who worked at the New Yorker over its first quarter century and more. Afterwards he signed my copy. The inscription shows his intuitive understanding of one of the magazine's best features.

Note: Don't forget to check out the archives for other fine examples of signed books. There are also a great many various and sundry posts about the New Yorker magazine. This link is only the beginning of your journey...

A letter from James Thurber to Wolcott Gibbs about what Thurber considered one of his best five cartoons appears in an earlier blog post.

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Something in the Air

James Thurber was born on this day in 1894. In 2007, Sotheby's sold a tension-filled Thurber drawing featuring two contemporary women intruding upon an otherwise all-male saloon, dating it to the "mid-1930's."

In a 1936 letter to Wolcott Gibbs of the New Yorker, Thurber finds himself in the midst of writing a series of casual pieces for the magazine. He notes that these pieces take time and effort, so he hopes Gibbs and the magazine won't reject them as nonchalantly as they reject his drawings. He then singled out this rejected drawing as "one of the best five I ever did".

Did Thurber really rank this piece so highly, or was he playing it up because he liked it but couldn't get it into the New Yorker? Certainly it was no simple task to populate this cartoon with a dozen distinct figures with remarkable body language. The drawing did not appear in print until one full year later in the September 30, 1937 issue of the British magazine Night and Day. (The New Yorker was reportedly somewhat bitter about Thurber's relationship with Night and Day, but I don't see how they could object to the magazine publishing Thurber drawings after the New Yorker had rejected them.)

Anyway, the cartoon is certainly a lively one, although I personally would not rank it amongst my top five, or even top fifty, Thurber drawings.

James Thurber, "There's something in the air here tonight."
Night and Day, September 30, 1937

http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2007/fine-books-and-manuscripts-including-americana-n08330/lot.139.html

http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/lot.pdf.N08330.html/f/139/N08330-139.pdf

Letter from James Thurber to Wolcott Gibbs, September 1936
The Thurber Letters:  The Wit, Wisdom and Surprising Life of James Thurber, Harrison Kinney and Rosemary A. Thurber, eds.

http://books.google.com/books?id=JUJLvNCAJzwC&pg=PA230&lpg=PA230&dq=%22There's+something+in+the+air+here+tonight%22&source=bl&ots=-ZC2EEgK4d&sig=YIXqg9zKFtJXw5GHgTzC_Za69Lw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=AJaiUpvZGrOwsASm94CAAQ&ved=0CDwQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22There's%20something%20in%20the%20air%20here%20tonight%22&f=false

Note:  What better time than James Thurber's birthday to review some old blog posts here.

The website for Thurber House in Columbus, Ohio is here.

Some of James Thurber's fabled New Yorker work is in the Condé Nast Store here.

As always, news about James Thurber is on Ink Spill here.

I may not be able to write Thurberesque captions, but I am currently a finalist in the Moment Cartoon Caption Contest. You can read all about it here and vote for a favorite caption here. Hurry, there's not much time left.

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