Calling Don Marquis

Chalk Ernest Lawrence Thayer up as another of history’s Don Marquis-style writers.

Marquis, as has been detailed on this blog before, rued that he was best remembered for writing stories about a talking cockroach and a talking cat.

According to Louis Untermeyer, Thayer felt much the same way about his most famous work.

Thayer thought it neither better nor worse than his unusual output; he considered its vogue “simply unaccountable” and the controversy incredible.

Here’s the original text.

And here’s Dewolf Hopper making Casey famous.

Here’s Disney’s version, from 1946.

And Disney’s follow-up in 1954.

That’s all we’ll say about Thayer and his master work – as Thayer himself, per Untermeyer, left newspapers and became a “successful manufacturer of woolens, and was glad to be forgotten as a humorist.”

Go figure.