SOURCE: Review of Selected Letters of James Thurber, in New Statesman, Vol. 103, No. 2655, February 5, 1982, p. 24.

This brief review faults the editors of this volume of letters for their selection criteria, calling the compilation disappointing.

Thurber was an inveterate letter writer from college days until his death in 1961. When his appalling eyesight became blindness in 1947, he simply resorted to dictation; even afterwards, friends still received occasional notes in his big scrawl. That the letters provide a valuable biographical source was amply recognised by Burton Bernstein, whose Thurber (1975) frequently resembles a collection of letters interspersed with commentary. This being so, devotees of—Twain perhaps excepted—America's greatest humorist will approach this selection with much anticipation, especially as they have waited 15 years since their last fix: the posthumous Thurber and Company. They are liable to be disappointed.

The editors cannot be blamed for the familiarity of these letters, nearly all of...