Donald Elder

Inside cover, added by the librarian who catalogued this book:

This is more than a biography of the great humorist from Niles, Michigan. In a penetrating full-length portrait Donald Elder has explored Ring Lardner's whole world--the vibrant and inventive times in which he lived, the unforgettable people who surrounded him, and the impudent words that came from his typewriter.

At the height of Lardner's fame in the middle twenties he was known simultaneously as a baseball reporter unlike any the world had ever seen; a newspaper columnist part gadfly and part reporting etymologist; a writer of short stories as rich in native idiom as they were polished in execution; and as a humorist who deplored the telling of "stories" as such. whenever anyone said, "Stop me if you've heard this one, " Ring would never hesitate to say, "Stop."… (mehr)