SOURCE: "Irvin Cobb," in Our American Humorists, Books for Libraries Press, Inc., 1931, pp. 91-103.

In the following essay, Masson praises Cobb's work and solicits from Cobb an overview of his career.

Irvin Cobb has written things about himself, I was about to add, "in a quite impersonal way," when I remembered that he had written about his being fat and had referred to the fact that he was homely, whereas he is nothing of the sort. Also, other people have written about him, but neither he, nor anyone else, has ever done him justice, not even Bob Davis, or Grant Overton.

Cobb is wrong about himself and others are wrong about him. I am the only one who really understands him, and yet to save me I cannot explain him in just the way that I should like.

I have said that Cobb is impersonal when writing about...