Ellis Parker Butler, Reina Marquis, Don Marquis

Don Marquis (July 29, 1878 Walnut, Illinois - December 29, 1937 New York City) was an American humorist, journalist, and author. He was variously a novelist, poet, cartoonist, newspaper columnist, and playwright. He is best remembered for creating the characters "Archy" and "Mehitabel", supposed authors of humorous verse.

Life

Donald Robert Perry Marquis (pronounced "mark' wis", not "mar kee") grew up in Walnut, Illinois. His brother David died in 1892 at the age of 20; his father James did so in 1897. After graduating Walnut high school in 1894, he attended the The Knox Academy, a defunct preparatory program run by Knox College, in 1896, but left after three months.

In 1909, Marquis married Reina Melcher, with whom he had a son, Robert Marquis (1915 - 1921), and a daughter, Barbara Marquis (1918 - 1931). Reina died on December 2, 1923. Three years later he married the actress Marjorie Potts Vonnegut. She died in her sleep on October 25, 1936. Marquis died of a stroke after having suffered three earlier strokes that left him partly disabled.

On August 23, 1943, the United States Navy christened a Liberty ship, the USS Don Marquis (IX-215), in his memory.

Career

Marquis joined The Evening Sun in 1912 and edited for the next eleven years a daily column "The Sun Dial". In 1922 he left The Evening Sun (shortened to The Sun in 1920) for the New York Tribune (renamed the New York Herald Tribune in 1924), where his daily column, "The Tower" (later "The Lantern") was a great success. He drew cartoons for The New Yorker, and contributed regular columns to the New York Sun and the Saturday Evening Post.

Marquis's best loved creation was Archy, a cockroach who allegedly left poems on Marquis's typewriter by jumping on the keys, and Archy's best friend the cat named Mehitabel. Friends of Archy and Mehitabel include Pete the Pup (not to be confused with the same author's Pete the Parrot), and an egomaniacal toad named Warty Bliggins.

Marquis was the author of about 35 books. He co-wrote (or contributed posthumously) to the films The Sports Pages, Shinbone Alley, The Good Old Soak, and Skippy. The 1926 film The Cruise of the Jasper B was supposedly based on his 1916 novel of the same name, although the plots have little in common.

Selected Books

• 1912. Danny's Own Story
• 1915. Dreams and Dust
• 1916. Cruise of the Jasper B
• 1916. Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers
• 1921. Noah and Jonah N Cap'n John Smith (poetry)
• 1921. The Old Soak (humorous vignettes; dramatised 1926)
• 1921. Carter and Other People (play)
• 1922. Sonnets to a Red Haired Lady and Famous Love Affairs (poetry)
• 1922. Poems and Portraits (poetry)
• 1922. The Revolt of the Oyster (short stories)
• 1924. The Dark Hours (play)
• 1927. Out of the Sea (play)
• 1927. archy and mehitabel (short stories)
• 1930. Off The Arm (novel)
• 1940. the lives and times of archy and mehitabel (short stories)
• 1946. The Best of Don Marquis. Doubleday
• 1982. The Selected Letters of Don Marquis (William McCollum, Jr, ed.). Includes autobiographical statement written for his friend Christopher Morley.

Biography

• Anthony, Edward, 1962. O Rare Don Marquis. Doubleday.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Don Marquis

Wikisource has original works written by or about:

Don Marquis

• Works by Don Marquis at Project Gutenberg
• Essays by Don Marquis at Quotidiana.org
• Don Marquis.org
• Don Marquis.com
• Njegoskij Fund

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