Thurber's Dogs

REDISCOVER THIS BELOVED COLLECTION of James Thurber's best tales and drawings about dogs and their men, women, and children in 24 stories, profiles, and essays.

“Only a few books have stayed with me through all the moves and upheavals of adult life, but Thurber’s Dogs is one of them, and it will stay with me to the end.”—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post

“The dog has got more fun out of Man than Man has got out of the dog, for the clearly demonstrable reason that Man is the more laughable of the two animals,” writes James Thurber in the introduction to this collection of his best writings and drawings about the unpredictable and often inexplicable relationships between dogs and their men, women, and children. In two dozen stories and essays and six sequences of drawings, he honors the dogs, real and imaginary, that have populated his life and work. Included in Thurber’s Dogs:

• Thurber’s first published story features Josephine, the bull terrier that didn’t seem to live up to a couple’s expectations—until they regretted giving her away and resorted to extreme measures to get her back. 

• “The Dog That Bit People” remembers Muggs the Airedale, a dog that gave Thurber “more trouble than all the other fifty-four or -five put together” yet somehow found an impeccable ally in Thurber’s mother. 

• Several pieces recall the Scottish terrier Jeannie, another troublemaker, who delighted in wandering off and implanting herself in the homes, parties, and picnics of other families. 

• Rex, the noble pit bull from Thurber’s childhood, developed the perplexing habit of bringing home large pieces of furniture and the gates from the gardens of neighbors’ yards. 

• Blaze, an English mastiff, received preferential treatment on a military plane—and the resulting scandal dominated headlines and hilariously plunged Franklin Roosevelt’s administration into crisis mode. 

• Among the selections available only in this volume are essays defending the reputations of poodles and bloodhounds, two breeds Thurber believed were largely misunderstood and underappreciated.