S. J. (Sidney Joseph) Perelman was born in Brooklyn, New York, on 1 February 1904 to a father who had immigrated to the United States twelve years earlier. He grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, where, as he told New York Times Magazine interviewer William Zinnser in 1969, his father was a machinist, ran a dry goods store, and tried unsuccessfully to raise poultry: "It was the American dream that if you had a few acres and a chicken farm there was no limit to your possible wealth. I grew up with and have since retained the keenest hatred of chickens." Perelman was a voracious reader, perhaps stimulated by the success stories of Horatio Alger and others. He was soon reading the variety of books that captured the attention of the youngsters of that time: the Toby Tyler books, Graustark, Girl of the Lumberlost, Trail of the Lonesome Pine, The Mystery...