The Works of James Thurber

Essays and Stories

• (With E. B. White) Is Sex Necessary?; or, Why You Feel the Way You Do, Harper, 1929.
• The Owl in the Attic and Other Perplexities, Harper, 1931.
• The Seal in the Bedroom and Other Predicaments, introduction by Dorothy Parker, Harper, 1932.
• My Life and Hard Times (includes The Night the Bed Fell, The Day the Dam Broke, and More Alarms at Night; also see below), Harper, 1933.
• The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze: A Collection of Short Pieces (includes One Is a Wanderer and Mr. Preble Gets Rid of His Wife), Harper, 1935.
• Let Your Mind Alone!, and Other More or Less Inspirational Pieces, Harper, 1937.
• The Last Flower: A Parable in Pictures (also see below), Harper, 1939.
• Cream of Thurber, Hamish Hamilton, 1939.
• Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated (includes Little Red Riding Hood and The Green Isle in the Sea), Harper, 1940.
• My World—and Welcome to It (includes The Secret Life of Walter Mitty; also see below), Harcourt, 1942.
• Thurber's Men, Women, and Dogs, Harcourt, 1943.
• The Thurber Carnival, Harper, 1945, abridged edition published as Selected Humorous Stories from "The Thurber Carnival," edited by Karl Botzenmayer, F. Shoeningh, 1958.
• The Beast in Me and Other Animals: A Collection of Pieces and Drawings about Human Beings and Less Alarming Creatures, Harcourt, 1948.
• The Thurber Album: A New Collection of Pieces about People, Simon & Schuster, 1952.
• Thurber Country: A New Collection of Pieces about People, Simon & Schuster, 1953.
• Thurber's Dogs: A Collection of the Master's Dogs, Simon & Schuster, 1955.
• A Thurber Garland, Hamish Hamilton, 1955.
• Further Fables for Our Time, Simon & Schuster, 1956.
• Alarms and Diversions, Harper, 1957.
• The Years with Ross (Book-of-the-Month Club selection), Little, Brown, 1959.
• Lanterns and Lances, Harper, 1961.
• Credos and Curios, Harper, 1962.
• Vintage Thurber, two volumes, Hamish Hamilton, 1963.
• Thurber & Company, introduction by Helen Thurber, Harper, 1966.
• Snapshot of a Dog, Associated Educational Services, 1966.
• The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (also see below), Associated Educational Services, 1967.
• The Catbird Seat, Associated Educational Services, 1967.
• Selected Letters of James Thurber, edited by his wife, Helen Thurber, and Edward Weeks, Little Brown, 1981.
• The Night the Ghost Got In, Creative Education, Inc., 1983.
• In a Word, Harper, 1989.
• Collecting Himself: James Thurber On Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself, Harper, 1990.
• The Years with Ross, Perennial Classics, 2001.
• The Thurber Letters: The Wit, Wisdom, and Surprising Life of James Thurber, Simon & Schuster, 2003.

Plays

• (With Elliott Nugent) The Male Animal (three-act; first produced on Broadway at the Cort Theatre, 1940; also see below), Random House, 1940.
• Many Moons (also see below), produced in New York City, 1947.
• A Thurber Carnival (produced in Columbus, OH, at the Hartman Theatre, 1960; later produced on Broadway at the ANTA Theatre, 1960; also see below), Samuel French, 1962, reprinted, Modern Library (New York, NY), 1994.

Also author of librettos for Oh My, Omar, and other musicals produced by the Scarlet Mask Club, Columbus, OH, and of the two- act musical, Nightingale.

Children's Fiction

• Many Moons (also see below), illustrations by Louis Slobodkin, Harcourt, 1943.
• The Great Quillow (also see below), illustrations by Doris Lee, Harcourt, 1944, reprinted, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (San Diego), 1994.
• The White Deer, illustrations by Don Freeman, Harcourt, 1945.
• The Thirteen Clocks (also see below), illustrations by Marc Simont, Simon & Schuster, 1950.
• The Wonderful O (also see below), illustrations by M. Simont, Simon & Schuster, 1957.
• The Thirteen Clocks [and] The Wonderful O, illustrations by Ronald Searle, Penguin, 1962.

Illustrator

• Margaret Samuels Ernst, The Executive's in a Word Book, Knopf, 1939.
• Elizabeth Howes, Men Can Take It, Random House, 1939.
• James R. Kinney, How to Raise a Dog, Simon & Schuster, 1953 (published in England as The Town Dog, Harvill, 1954 ).

Other

• People Have More Fun Than Anybody: A Centennial Celebration of Drawings and Writings by James Thurber: Being a Hundred Or So..., edited by Michael J. Rosen, Harcourt Brace (New York, NY), 1994.
• Writings and Drawings, Library of America (New York, NY), 1996.

Most of Thurber's papers are in the Thurber Collection at the Ohio State University Library in Columbus, OH.

Media Adaptations:   My Life and Hard Times was filmed as Rise and Shine by Twentieth Century-Fox in 1941; The Male Animal was filmed by Warner Brothers in 1942, and again in 1952 as She's Working Her Way through College; The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was filmed by Samuel Goldwyn Productions in 1947; A Unicorn in the Garden was adapted as an animated film by Learning Corporation of America in 1952, and by Columbia Pictures in 1953; The Thirteen Clocks was adapted as an opera and as a television special in 1954; several of Thurber's stories were adapted as the play Three by Thurber, written by Paul Ellwood and St. John Terrell, first produced in New York City at the Theatre de Lys in 1955; some of Thurber's work was adapted for the film Fireside Book of Dog Stories by State University of Iowa in 1957; The Last Flower was adapted as a dance by a French ballet company, 1959; "The Catbird Seat" was filmed as The Battle of the Sexes by Continental Distributing in 1960; Many Moons was filmed by Rembrandt Films, c. 1960, was adapted as a filmstrip by H. M. Stone Productions in 1972, and as an animated film by Contemporary Films/McGraw in 1975; My World--and Welcome to It was adapted as a television series in 1969; several of Thurber's stories were adapted as The War between Men and Women by National General Pictures Corporation in 1972. Excerpts from the Broadway production of A Thurber Carnival were recorded by Columbia Records in 1960; Caedmon recorded readings by Peter Ustinov of The Great Quillow, The Grizzly and the Gadgets, and Further Fables for Our Time, and The Unicorn in the Garden, and Other Fables for Our Time in 1972, and of Many Moons in 1973; recorded remarks by Thurber and others were collected on The World of James Thurber by Miller-Brody Productions

Source: Contemporary Authors Online, Thomson Gale, 2005.
Gale Database: Contemporary Authors Online

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