Don Marquis as portrayed by a student from the Immaculate Conception School of
Jamaica Estates, NY.
My full name is Donald Robert Perry Marquis and was born on July 29, 1878 in rural Walnut, Illinois. I was a celebrated New York newspaper columnist and humorist in the early decades of the 1900�s. Today I am remembered mostly for my stories of Archy and Mehitabel, a cockroach and an alley cat, which has never gone out of print since it first appeared, more than 75 years ago. Altogether, I wrote five plays, dozens of books, and hundreds of poems and short stories.
I began my newspaper career setting type and writing for small-town weeklies. After a brief try as a reporter in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, I moved to New York in 1909 to seek my fortune. I worked at several New York newspapers before moving to The Evening Sun in 1912, where I began to write a daily column called "The Sun Dial". This column was noted for its breezy mix of clever remarks, commentary and humorous verse.
I was to become one of the most quoted writers in Manhattan in the 1920s. The great humor writers who came after me -- Robert Benchly, Dorothy Parker, James Thurber -- considered me a New York icon.
My friend Christopher Morley wrote this about me "Don Marquis was, in his own circle, the best loved man of his time." Another friend of mine, E.B. White who wrote Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web wrote, Marquis "is a very funny man, his work rich and satisfying, full of sad beauty, off color adventure, political wisdom, and wild surmise; full of pain and good humor, full of exact and inspired writing."
Presented May 22, 2004 by The Richmond Hill Historical Society, Maple Grove Cemetery, and The Immaculate Conception School of Jamaica Estates, NY (Dr. Charlene Jaffie, principal).
Copyright © 2004 Carl Ballenas & Nancy Cataldi.
No claim to Old Kew Gardens [.com] color photograph.
No claim to Old Kew Gardens [.com] color photograph.
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