Ring Lardner Tonight: A postscript to "Champion" -- How it found its way into book form

The 2004 reprint of How to Write Short Stories
(whose title was suggested by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

"Scott Fitzgerald was the catalytic agent in the transformation of Ring Lardner from a journalistic funnyman to a literary figure. Just as he was to do with his next year's 'find,' Ernest Hemingway, Scott persuaded Ring and Max Perkins of Scribner's that both parties would benefit from an affiliation. The specific idea, which had apparently never occurred to Ring, was to make a book of a selection of his short stories . . . "

-- Ring Lardner Jr., in The Lardners: My Family Remembered

"I'm sorry you have had so much trouble gathering the stuff."

-- Ring, in a letter to Scribner's editor Maxwell Perkins,
referring to the grueling hunt for copies of his stories

by Ken

In the terrific introduction (which we read in two parts, first and second) that John Lardner wrote in 1958, not long before his death at 46, for a new edition of his father's You Know Me Al (of which we read the first chapter in five parts), Ring's oldest son identified a distinctly backhanded quality to the outwardly effusive praise for Ring's work by his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald (right); John further suggested, quite persuasively, a corresponding blind spot on Fitzgerald's part regarding his own work. None of which should diminish the sincerity of Fitzgerald's admiration for his friend's writing, or the crucial role he played in creating public awareness of his literary prowess.

It probably never occurred to Fitzgerald, though, as he pursued his plan to have Scribner's publish a collection of Lardner short stories, that there would be a monumental logistical problem: simply laying hands on the texts, hardly any of which the author had in his possession, either in manuscript or published magazine form. As Bill Lardner (i.e., Ring Jr., the third of Ring and Ellis's four sons) explains, his father didn't keep copies of, well, much of anything.

[A morbid note: Young as Ring (1885-1933) was when he died, Fitzgerald (1896-1940), almost 11 years his junior, would die even younger, at 44.]

FOR BILL LARDNER'S ACCOUNT OF THE PUBLICATION
OF HOW TO WRITE SHORT STORIES, CLICK HERE.


FOR RING'S PREFACE TO HOW TO WRITE SHORT STORIES (WITH SAMPLES), CLICK HERE.

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

RING'S "CHAMPION" -- THE WHOLE STORY

Part 1: We make the acquaintance of young Michael Kelly
Part 2: In Milwaukee, Midge makes connections
Part 3: In Boston, Midge makes his mark
Part 4: In New Orleans, Midge reads some mail
Part 5: Back in his hometown, the champ knows how to deal with a sponger
Part 6: Back in Milwaukee, the champ rearranges more old arrangements
Part 7: In New York, the champ meets the press
Postscript: How "Champion" found its way into book form (tonight)

TOMORROW NIGHT: I've been thinking that with "Champion" under our belts we've got an obvious segue to Thurber's "The Greatest Man in the World," but I haven't managed to plan that far ahead yet.


THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, and JEAN SHEPHERD TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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