Books: The Sixth New Yorker Album and My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber

Readers of The World of Books, a section of the Courier-Journal of Louisville on Sunday, November 19, 1933, were treated to front page reviews of two books related to the world of The New Yorker. The first of these is The Sixth New Yorker Album illustrated with three cartoons—by William Steig, Peter Arno, and James Thurber—situated around the page with other reviews. The second is Thurber's My Life and Hard Times.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/107233823/

The review of The Sixth New Yorker Album is by someone identified here only as B. B. Some readers might detect possible hints of a certain attitude towards the greatest city in the world and its greatest cartoons.

Kathryn Browder reviewed My Life and Hard Times, as Thurber's autobiographical volume is known everywhere but in this review.

If you were fortunate enough to have $2.50 to spare back in the Great Depression (a hefty $57.53 today), a pristine copy of The Sixth New Yorker Album would have been a fine, if pricey, acquisition. The book has been out of print for decades, but you can still find a good copy sans dust jacket for far less than $57. Finding one in splendid condition with a nice dust jacket, on the other hand, might become quite the quest. Similarly, if you had $2.00 back in 1933 (a not insignificant $46.03 now), then the Thurber book was yours to own. Many inexpensive editions are available nowadays, but a first edition with dust jacket could cost big bucks these days.

Note:  B. B. and Kathryn Browder's reviews are not the last word on these books. In recent times, on his indispensable blog Ink Spill, New Yorker cartoonist Michael Maslin writes about The Sixth New Yorker Album (a copy complete with dust jacket!) here and about James Thurber's My Life and Hard Times (a first edition!) here.

Another indispensable blog, A New Yorker State of Mind, has this to say about My Life and Hard Times.

04237