Ring Lardner

Ring Lardner (1921)

Ringgold Wilmer Lardner (born March 6, 1885 in Niles , Michigan , † September 27, 1933 in New York ) was an American sports reporter and writer .

As a reporter, he used the pseudonym James Clarkson at times .

Life

1885-1915

Ring Lardner was the youngest child of Henry and Lena Phillips Lardner. Until 1897 he was privately tutored in his parents' house. During this time he began to be interested in baseball , music and theater. From 1897 to 1901 he attended Niles High School. In 1901 he went to Chicago, where he worked for a short time as an office assistant. He then had a job with the Michigan Central Railroad in his hometown. 1902 enrolled him at the Armor Institute in Chicago in mechanical engineering. Since he failed his first exam, he soon had to break off this (unpopular) course. Back in Niles, he worked for the Niles Gas Company, among others.

From 1905 Lardner was a sports reporter for the South Bend Times , from 1907 for the Chicago Inter-Ocean and the Chicago Examiner , where he mainly wrote about baseball. From 1908 to 1910 he was a baseball reporter for the Chicago Tribune , from 1910 to 1911 editor-in-chief of St. Louis Sporting News . He also wrote for other newspapers.

In 1911 he married Ellis Abbott and went back to Chicago. His first son, John Abbott, was born in 1912. In 1913 he worked again for the Chicago Tribune , in which he now also published literary sports texts, including short stories and poems. From 1914 he wrote for the Saturday Evening Post , which printed many of his baseball stories in the years that followed. In 1914 his second son, James Phillips, was born, and in 1915 the third son, Ringgold Wilmer Jr.

1916-1933

In 1916 Lardner's first collection of short stories appeared under the title You Know Me Al . In 1917 he went to France for a short time as a correspondent for Collier's Weekly . In 1919 he left the Tribune and moved with his family to Greenwich (Connecticut) ; in the same year his fourth son, David, was born. In 1924, F. Scott Fitzgerald , with whom he was friends, moved him to publish another collection of his short stories How To Write Short Stories (With Samples) . He is very successful with this collection. Several collections of his stories appeared in quick succession over the next few years. In the mid-1920s, Lardner began to write for the theater, but had little success.

In 1929 he wrote the play June Moon with George S. Kaufman , which was his only success at the theater. In 1933 Lardner began writing columns for the New York City . In September 1933 he died of a heart attack after having repeatedly been seriously ill in the previous years and weakened by his alcoholism .

His son, screenwriter Ring Lardner junior , was awarded two Academy Awards .

Works

• Bib Ballads , 1915
• You Know Me Al , 1916
• Gullible's Travels , 1917
• My Four Weeks in France , 1918
• Treat 'em Rough , 1918
• The Real Dope , 1919
• Own Your Own Home , 1919
• The Young Immigrunts , 1920
• Symptoms of Being , 1921
• The Big Town , 1921
• Say it with Oil , 1923
• How to Write Short Stories (With Samples) , 1924
• What of It? , 1925
• The Love Nest and Other Stories , 1926
• The Story of a Wonder Man , 1927
• Round Up , 1929
• June 17, Moon , 1930
• Lose With a Smile , 1933

Film adaptations

• 1948: So this is New York - So this is New York ( So this is New York )
• 1949: Between women and ropes ( Champion )

literature

• Douglas Robinson: Ring Lardner and the Other. New York 1992. ISBN 0195076001 .
• Jonathan Yardley: A Biography of Ring Lardner. Random House, New York 1977. ISBN 0394498119 .
• Matthew J. Bruccoli, Richard Layman: Ring W. Lardner, A Descriptive Bibliography. Pittsburgh 1976. ISBN 0-8229-3306-3 .
• Ring Lardner Jr .: The Lardners. My Family Remembered. Harper & Row, New York 1976. ISBN 0060125179 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ His first name "Ringgold" is derived from Admiral Cadwalader Ringgold (1802–1867).

Web links

• Literature by and about Ring Lardner in the catalog of the German National Library
• Lardnermania - An Appreciation of Ring W. Lardner and his Work
• Ring Lardner in the Baseball Hall of Fame