Ring Lardner Tonight: Prefaces to "The Love Nest" and "The Story of a Wonder Man" -- It was part of his charm

"The publication of this autobiography is entirely without the late Master's sanction. He wrote it as a pastime and burnt up each chapter as soon as it was written; the salvaging was accomplished by ghouls who haunted the Lardners' ash bbl. during my whole tenure of office as night nurse to their dromedary."

-- Sarah E. Spooldripper, in the Preface

to The Story of a Wonder Man

by Ken

I know I piled a lot on in last night's inaugural Ring Lardner Tonight: first, by way of background, his own 1917 autobiographical précis "Who's Who -- and Why ('Remarks by Himself')" and some biographical information by the editors of the 1976 Lardner anthology Some Champions,and then first getting into the Preface to the collection How to Write Short Stories. If you missed them, they're just a click away (well, a click apiece).

Tonight we have two more prefaces (one quite brief), written, curiously, not by Lardner himself but by the Lardner family wolfherd, Sarah E. Spooldripper. Note that later she represents herself as taking care of the family dromedary, which suggests that she may not be all that accurate a source of information, which may be worth keeping in mind. It was part of her charm.


FOR THE SPOOLDRIPPER PREFACES TO THE LOVE NEST
AND THE STORY OF A WONDER MAN, CLICK HERE


TOMORROW in RING LARDNER TONIGHT: Part 1 of "The Young Immigrunts" (finally!)


THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY TONIGHT,
WILL CUPPY TONIGHT, and WOLCOTT GIBBS TONIGHT):
Check out the series to date

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