Donald Robert Perry Marquis

Donald Robert Perry Marquis (born July 29, 1878 in Walnut ( Illinois ), † December 29, 1937 in New York ) was an American writer, poet and journalist. His best-known works are the poems of archy and mehitabel . He published under the short form Don Marquis .

Life

Don Marquis attended high school in Walnut, where he graduated in 1894. He then attended the Knox College Academy , which he left after a short time. He then worked as a reporter in Washington DC, where he temporarily attended an art college, and in Philadelphia. In 1902 he moved to Atlanta, where he worked for the Atlanta News and the Atlanta Journal . In 1907 he went to Uncle Remus' Magazine , where he met his first wife, Reina Melcher; the two married in 1909. The marriage resulted in two children, the son Robert (1915–1921) and the daughter Barbara (1918–1931).

In 1909 Don Marquis went to New York, where he worked for several newspapers before he got a job at The Evening Sun in 1912 , for which he subsequently wrote his famous column, The Sun Dial . The peculiarity of the column not only made Don Marquis' very personal, funny and allusive style, but even more the fictional characters recurring in it, which included the drinker "Old Soak" as well as the cockroach Archy and the street cat Mehitabel.

In the 1920s, Don Marquis was one of New York's most successful journalists and writers. In 1922 he used his character Old Soak as the protagonist for a play that was very successful on Broadway and saw 423 performances; later it was also made into a film and adapted for radio. Also in 1922 Marquis went to the New York Tribune (from 1924 New York Herald Tribune ), where his column appeared under the title The Lantern .

In 1923 his wife Reina died. In 1925 he gave up his position at the New York Herald Tribune. As a result, he continued to work as a freelancer for the Tribune and Collier’s, among other things . In 1926 Don Marquis married Marjorie Potts Vonnegut. In 1929 he went to Hollywood as a screenwriter, but broke off this attempt after a short time, disappointed. His second wife, Marjorie, died in 1936. Marquis himself had to struggle with major health problems in the last years of his life. After several heart attacks and broken by the early death of his children and his second wife, he died in 1937.

Since 1923 he was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

Create

Don Marquis' most famous works are the poems about Archy and Mehitabel. Archy is, according to his own information, a verse libre- Poet who was reborn as a cockroach. He is the author of the poems, some of which are addressed to Don Marquis. Archy, according to the fiction, lives in Don Marquis' house and writes his poems on his typewriter every night. Since as a cockroach he can only type by climbing onto the typewriter and then jumping down on the respective key, he cannot use capital letters or other characters that can only be generated using the shift key - according to the idiosyncratic diction of the poems. Mehitabel is, she claims, a reincarnation of Queen Cleopatra . She sees herself as an artist, as a failed actress who often lives on the streets where she grapples with seedy hangovers.

In the poems, Marquis, always in the guise of Archy the cockroach, addresses a multitude of social and political problems - from World War I to unemployment and prohibition . From the cockroach's perspective, the texts have an extremely charming joke, and they come to a head that would be put on in a different guise and have a moralizing effect. Archys' idiosyncratic spelling also gives the poems an original tone that often changes seamlessly from joke to tragedy.

While Don Marquis was still alive, several anthologies were published with the poems, one of them with congenial illustrations by the comic artist George Herriman .

Prices

Don Marquis has been nominated three times for the O. Henry Memorial Prize for Short Narration, a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters , and a medal from the Mark Twain Society .

Works

Danny's Own Story . Garden City, New York 1912
Dreams & Dust . New York and London 1915
The Cruise of the Jasper B. New York and London 1916
Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers . New York and London 1916
Prefaces . New York and London 1919
The Old Soak and Hail and Farewell . Garden City and Toronto 1921
Carter and Other People . New York and London 1921
Noah to 'Jonah to' Cap'n John Smith, a Book of Humorous Verse . New York and London 1921
Poems and Portraits . Garden City and Toronto 1922
Sonnets to a Red-Haired Lady (By a Gentleman with a Blue Beard), and Famous Love Affairs . Garden City and Toronto 1922
The Revolt of the Oyster . Garden City 1922
The Old Soak's History of the World, with Occasional Glances at Baycliff, LI, and Paris, France . Garden City 1924
The Dark Hours, Five Scenes From a History . Garden City 1924
The Awakening & Other Poems . London 1924
Out of the Sea, a Play in Four Acts . Garden City 1927
The Almost Perfect State . Garden City 1927
archy and mehitabel . Garden City 1927
Love Sonnets of a Cave Man, and Other Verses . Garden City 1928
When the Turtles Sing, and Other Unusual Tales . Garden City 1928
A variety of people . Garden City 1929
Off the arm . Garden City 1930
archys life of mehitabel . Garden City 1933
Master of the Revels, a Comedy in Four Acts . Garden City 1934
Chapters for the Orthodox . Garden City 1934
archy does his part . Garden City 1935
Sun Dial Time . Garden City 1936
Sons of the Puritans . New York 1939

literature

Edward Anthony: O Rare Don Marquis . 1962 (biography)

Film adaptations

The Old Soak , 1926
Skippy , 1931 (screenplay)
The Good Old Soak , 1937

Web links

Wikiquote: Don Marquis - Quotes

Individual evidence

↑ Members: Don Marquis. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 12, 2019 .

personal data
SURNAME	Marquis, Donald Robert Perry
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Marquis, Don
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American writer, poet, and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH	July 29, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH	Walnut , ( Illinois )
DATE OF DEATH	December 29, 1937
Place of death	new York

[1] Members: Don Marquis. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 12, 2019 .