According to eBay seller dc467 of Paramus, a very nicely signed copy of The Art of The New Yorker 1925-1995 by Lee Lorenz that belonged to cartoonist James Stevenson (1929-2017) was obtained from his estate. The seller suggests the volume was "presented to" Stevenson, raising the question of whether he himself attended the book launch party at 70 Lincoln Center Plaza. Stevenson doesn't seem to have signed anybody else's book there, so it's unclear whether he was or was not actually present.
In July, the seller first offered this book for $599.99. It's an unusually high price even for a copy signed by multiple cartoonists, but the volume does come with a great provenance. The truth is, there is no absolute evidence in the book that it belonged to Stevenson, but a lot of the cartoonists addressed him as Jim and seemed familiar enough with him, so there is really no reason to doubt he was the owner. Furthermore, there are apparent inside jokes from Roz Chast, Edward Koren, Victoria Roberts, and Robert Weber, two of them referring to his hair, perhaps his facial hair. A surprising number of the cartoonists signed not on the front endpapers, as seen in several other copies, but on pages in the book alongside their individual printed cartoons. On the downside, there are not enough original drawings here; the two by George Booth and Danny Shanahan are absolute highlights of the book.
The seller, dc467, did not accept sequential offers and counteroffers of $200, $225, and $250. Eventually, though, dc lowered the book's asking price to $350 and in late December, apparently despairing of another opportunity to sell it before Christmas, accepted a best offer of $280.
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James Stevenson
eBay listing ended December 20, 2021
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Robert Weber actually wrote, "To Tom—Jim said that I loved your sculptures, too. Robert Weber."
The unidentified signature on the back endpaper belongs to George Plimpton.
James Stevenson
eBay item description |
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| Sold for best offer of $280 |
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"To Jim
Very best wishes
George Plimpton" |
Included is Stevenson's clipping of Ben Yagoda's review of The Art of The New Yorker 1925-1995 in the Times Book Review. I posted this five years ago without the Thurber drawing, so here it is again, this time complete:
Note: Believe it or not, this is the eleventh unique copy of this book to appear here on the blog and the second originally belonging to a New Yorker cartoonist. I still have two more copies on deck, but I'm sure there are far more worth posting.
So here's the deal, in a nutshell: You scour your personal library, or a friend's library, for a copy of this book, or really of any book, with at the very least an original drawing or inscription by a New Yorker artist, take scans of photos of the critical pages, and forward such to me. I do the rest, and soon interested parties everywhere get to see and enjoy your images.
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