SOURCE: "The Last Autobiography," in The New York Times Book Review, March 10, 1941, p. 4.

In the following essay, van Gelder reviews Exit Laughing, finding it entertaining, but ultimately unsatisfying.

Irvin S. Cobb learned his trade in a rugged school where facility in writing was the reward for energy and vanity, and where politeness was the price of safety. He has, of course, been writing autobiography for years. A strong instinct for self-preservation early taught him to believe that the humor that picks on what is ridiculous in other white men is a spurious brand. The proper study for the genuine droll, he considers, is that droll himself, and as Mr. Cobb has lived much of his life on the profits of humor, he has inevitably written a great deal about himself. His early experiences in Paducah, Ky., where there were plenty of guns left over from the Civil War...