Wolcott Gibbs Tonight: "Robert Benchley: In Memoriam"

by Ken

Last night we got a glimpse of one of The New Yorker's most important -- and yet today little-known -- writers and editors, Wolcott Gibbs, and I promised that at some point we would get more than last night's brief sampling of his own voice. I've picked out a piece called "The Mantle of Comstock," about the way self-styled guardians of morality go about imposing their often-crackpot views, which he wrote in his capacity as theater critic of The New Yorker. For tonight I thought we would back up a bit, to the piece he wrote for the New York Times following the death of Robert Benchley (yes, our own Robert Benchley), whom he had succeeded as New Yorker theater critic in 1938.

For starters I've picked out a piece called "The Mantle of Comstock," about the actual mechanics by which religiously inspired self-appointed guardians of public morality do their dirty work of attempting to impose their phony-baloney "morality" on normal people. Since it was written in Gibbs's capacity as New Yorker theater critic, I thought for tonight we would back up and look at a piece he wrote on the occasion of the passing of his predecessor in the job. I love this piece, if only for the opening anecdote.


TO READ GIBBS'S "ROBERT BENCHLEY:
IN MEMORIAM," CLICK HERE


SUNDAY in WOLCOTT GIBBS TONIGHT: "The Mantle of Comstock"


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

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