Donald Ogden Stewart was already the author of the highly successful work A Parody Outline of History (1921) before he went to Paris for the first time in 1922, but it was in Paris that Stewart developed his own brand of "crazy humor," previously used by Ring Lardner, and employed it in the novel Mr. and Mrs. Haddock Abroad (1924).

A native of Columbus, Ohio, Stewart attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Yale University. After graduating from Yale in 1916, Stewart worked for the American Telephone and Telegraph Company before entering the navy in early 1918. Because of his poor eyesight, he spent World War I as an instructor in Chicago. After his discharge in April 1919, he returned to the telephone company and was transferred to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he lived across the river in St. Paul and became friendly with F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was at home finishing his first novel, This Side...