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Chronology
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1885-1905
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Born Ringgold
Wilmer Lardner on 6 March 1885, in Niles,
Michigan, the youngest child of wealthy parents Henry and
Lena Phillips Lardner; 1890-1897 is taught at
home, first by his mother and later by a private tutor;
even though he has physical problems with one of his
legs, he is active in sports, especially baseball; shows
an early interest in music and theatricals; 1897-1901
attends Niles High School, where he sings in a quartet
and plays football; graduates at age 16 and writes the
class poem, reportedly his first published work, which
appears in the Niles Daily Star (14 June
1901); 1901 goes to Chicago, where he works
briefly as an office boy; returns to Niles and finds
employment with the Michigan Central Railroad; 1902 at
his father's urging enrolls in Armour Institute in
Chicago to study engineering; fails all courses except
rhetoric and is forced to leave at the end of the spring
semester; 1903-1905 returns to Niles, rests for a
year, and works about a year and a half for the Niles Gas
Company as a bookkeeper, bill collector, and
meter-reader; is active in the Niles American minstrel
group; acts in and writes the music and most of the
lyrics for a two-act musical comedy, Zanzibar
(14 April 1903). |
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| 1905-1913 |
1905-1907
works as a sports reporter for the South Bend Times;
1907-1908 works successively as a general sports
writer for the Chicago Inter-Ocean and as a
baseball reporter for the Chicago Examiner,
where he writes under the alias James Clarkson and
travels with the White Sox on their spring tour; 1908-1910
is employed as a baseball reporter for the Chicago
Tribune; 1910-1911 works as managing
editor and feature writer of the St. Louis Sporting
News, sports editor of the Boston American,
and as copyreader for the Chicago American;
marries Ellis Abbott of Goshen, Indiana, on 28 June
1911; 1912 once again works as a baseball
writer for the Chicago Examiner; his first
son, John Abbott, is born 4 May; 1913 rejoins the Chicago
Tribune staff and begins writing the daily
column, "In the Wake of the News," a collection
of sports tidbits, humorous verse, observations, and
stories.
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| 1914-1923 |
1914
begins his long association with The Saturday
Evening Post, publishing ten busher stories,
first-person epistolary baseball stories written in the
slang vernacular, in the magazine his first year; in
collaboration with Edward C. Heeman, publishes a souvenir
booklet entitled March 6th: The Home Coming of
Charles A. Comiskey, John J. McGraw and James J. Callahan,
commemorating the return of the Chicago White Sox and New
York Giants from an historic world tour; his second son,
James Phillips, is born 18 May; 1915 publishes
more busher stories in The Saturday Evening Post;
writes a series of Fred Gross stories in Redbook;
publishes Bib Ballads, a collection of
humorous verse about children, derived mainly from his
"Wake" columns; his third son, Ringgold Wilmer
Jr., called Bill, is born 19 August; 1916
publishes You Know Me Al, a collection of
his busher stories from the Post; 1917
publishes Gullible's Travels, Etc., the
first of his so-called wise boob collections; makes a
brief trip to France as a war correspondent for Collier's;
1918 publishes My Four Weeks in France,
a collection of his Collier's work, and Treat
'Em Rough, a collection of Jack Keefe (the
busher) war stories with the conspicuous absence of the
stories in which Jack tries to avoid the draft; 1919
publishes The Real Dope, another collection
of busher tales, Own Your Own Home, a
collection of the Fred Gross stories from Redbook,
and Regular Fellows I Have Met, a book of
comic verse poking fun at current Chicago celebrities;
resigns from the Chicago Tribune and begins
writing a weekly column for the Bell Syndicate; moves his
family from Chicago to Greenwich, Connecticut; his fourth
son, David, is born 11 March; 1920 publishes The
Young Immigrunts, a parody of The Young
Visitors by Daisy Ashford, it recounts the
family's trip from Chicago to Greenwich as seen through
the eyes of four-year-old Ring Jr.; 1921 publishes
The Big Town, a series of stories that had
appeared in the Saturday Evening Post the
previous year, and Symptoms of Being 35, a
comic essay about "old" age; 1922 begins
contributing sketches, with mixed results, to the
Follies; 1923 begins a three-year job of writing
continuity for a comic strip based on You Know Me
Al.
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| 1924-1927 |
1924
after Fitzgerald had pressured him to release a
collection of his short stories, publishes How To
Write Short Stories (With Samples), which is met
with popular and critical success; 1925 publishes What
of It?, a collection of humorous pieces and
nonsense plays; Scribner's re-releases You Know Me
Al, Gullible's Travels, The Big Town, and What
of It? in matching bindings, which prompts
critics to evaluate Lardner's work as a whole; 1926
publishes The Love Nest and Other Stories,
the second major collection of his short fiction; is
diagnosed with tuberculosis; 1927 publishes The
Story of a Wonder Man, a comic autobiography;
stops writing for the Bell Syndicate in order to devote
more time to the theater.
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| 1928-1933 |
1928
collaborates with George M. Cohan on an unsuccessful
play, Elmer, the Great, based on Lardner's
short story "Hurry Kane"; 1929 publishes
Round Up, a collection of 35 stories, 14 of
which were previously uncollected; collaborates with
George S. Kaufman on June Moon, Lardner's
only theatrical success; 1930 writes a column for
the Bell Syndicate; 1931 contributes a series of
autobiographical articles to The Saturday Evening
Post; 1932 writes a new series of busher
stories for The Saturday Evening Post.;
begins contributing a series of radio columns to The
New Yorker in which he speaks out against, among
other things, what he considers pornographic and inane
lyrics and jokes; 1933 publishes Lose With a
Smile, a collection of the new busher stories
from the Post; dies 25 September of a heart attack.
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