Whitney Darrow, Jr.: Farewell to Helen & George

In the spring of 1955, a couple, Helen and George, relocated from Connecticut to Vermont. Their friends, Middy and Whitney Darrow, Jr., sent them off with a personalized farewell card. Whitney Darrow, of course, was a celebrated New Yorker cartoonist; if you don't know, someone has helpfully written it on the back. Darrow's pencil drawing depicts a circus act in which a young girl is lighting the fuse to launch a human cannonball (George?) while a woman (Helen?) in a two-piece costume anticipates the blast and holds her ears.

The artwork is available from Between the Covers Rare Books, Inc.:

Whitney Darrow, Jr.
AbeBooks listing accessed June14, 2025

https://www.abebooks.com/signed/Going-Away-Card-Original-Drawing-Whitney/32224287366/bd?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=trg&cm_pla=want_CM&ref_=pe_aep_AEP_wants_buyer-wants&cm_ite=viewbook_high

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Whitney Darrow, Jr.: Marge and Bob's Copy of "Stop, Miss!"

A drawing of an astronaut striding purposely forward and carrying a sign to hang is printed in the front of the 1957 collection "Stop, Miss!" by Whitney Darrow, Jr. He typically would personalize copies of this collection by further embellishing this image, for example by adding a billboard naming the recipient.

Whitney Darrow, Jr.

"Stop, Miss!" (1957), page 1

Marge and Bob's personalized copy is unique. Although it is a first edition, Darrow dated the inscription in Wilton, Connecticut, September 10, 1973, some sixteen years after publication. Evidently Darrow created this in his home studio in Wilton.

Whitney Darrow, Jr.

"Stop, Miss!" (1957) with a watercolor drawing inscribed "For Marge + Bob with Love From —Whitney—>(+ Middy)(+ Toby)/Wilton Conn/Sept 10 —1973"

Whitney Darrow, Jr.
Etsy Listing Accessed June 25, 2020

https://www.etsy.com/listing/492306108/stop-miss-by-whitney-darrow-jr-signed

Note:  This is the third personalized copy of "Stop, Miss!" to appear on this blog. The copy belonging to Darrow's Random House editor Pat Read has a full page watercolor with the astronaut himself relegated to a billboard above a brick wall (which bears the inscription) in a city park with a boy and a girl. Cartoonist Roy Doty's copy, curiously, also dates from 1973.

Attempted Bloggery seeks other examples of books with original art by Whitney Darrow, Jr.

Who were Marge and Bob?

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Whitney Darrow, Jr.

Original Drawings in Books

Attempted Bloggery's Edenic Index

   

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Middy and Whitney Darrow's Copy of Consenting Adults by Peter De Vries

Prolific New Yorker writer and humorist Peter De Vries (1910-1993) wrote twenty-three novels including Consenting Adults or The Duchess Will Be Furious published in 1980. A copy of this book inscribed to "Middy and Whitney" went to auction in 2013 with a reasonable estimate of $70-$200. It sold for only $15. What went wrong?

For one thing, the auction house, National Book Auctions of Freeville, New York, failed to identify one of the recipients as New Yorker cartoonist Whitney Darrow, Jr. (1909-1999)—the other is the cartoonist's wife Mildred or Middy. So this is a book presented by one New Yorker luminary to another, and to his wife. That alone should make it an object of considerable interest to students of the magazine and of twentieth-century arts and letters...that is, if they know about it. Lots offered for sale in some of the smaller auction houses have been known to fly under the radar. That may have been the case here.

The other problem, and in all likelihood the more serious issue, is that De Vries' name isn't remembered by all that many people today. His books all went out of print in his lifetime and only a very few are back in print now. 

Peter De Vries

https://www.auctionzip.com/auction-lot/Peter-De-Vries-CONSENTING-ADULTS-OR-THE-DUCHESS-W_7574F94937/

Google Books N-Gram Viewer
Some American Humorists

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Peter+De+Vries%2CS.+J.+Perelman%2CJames+Thurber%2CRing+Lardner%2CRobert+Benchley%2CGeorge+S.+Kaufman&year_start=1900&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CPeter%20De%20Vries%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CS.%20J.%20Perelman%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CJames%20Thurber%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CRing%20Lardner%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CRobert%20Benchley%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CGeorge%20S.%20Kaufman%3B%2Cc0#t1%3B%2CPeter%20De%20Vries%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CS.%20J.%20Perelman%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CJames%20Thurber%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CRing%20Lardner%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CRobert%20Benchley%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CGeorge%20S.%20Kaufman%3B%2Cc0

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Middy and Whitney Darrow's Drawing of Pugsley by Charles Addams

New Yorker cartoonist Whitney Darrow, Jr., and his wife Middy were given a sketch by Charles Addams of the Addams Family's Pugsley. They had it matted and framed, as who wouldn't? It is inscribed "For Middy and Whitney/ with love/ Chas Addams" across Pugsley's chest. The rest of the drawing—the mirror, the chair, the inkwells, and the toothbrush or stick—are all there to explain how Pugsley managed it himself without having to make a trip to the tattoo parlor. He's got quite the hand-eye coordination, that boy does.

Image added December 18, 2019

Image added December 18, 2019

RR Auction: March 2015 Fine Autographs & Artifacts Auction, Boston

https://issuu.com/rrauction/docs/448

Charles Addams
RR Auction

https://www.rrauction.com/PastAuctionItem/333

That sale price, $269.50 including premium, paid fairly recently in 2015 for a framed Addams Family drawing given by one great New Yorker cartoonist to the family of another, is without question on the low side. This is not because Addams' work is underappreciated—far from it. Instead the low price is an artifact, most likely, of the sale taking place a bit off the beaten path at one of the smaller auction houses.

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