Introduction

This early work by Ring Lardner was originally published in 1918 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introduction.

About the Author

Ring Lardner was born in Niles, Michigan in 1885. He studied engineering at the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago, but did not complete his first semester.

Career Highlights

In 1907, Lardner obtained his first job as journalist with the South Bend Times. Six years later, he published his first successful book, You Know Me Al, an epistolary novel written in the form of letters by Jack Keefe, a bush-league baseball player, to a friend back home. A huge hit, the book earned the appreciation of Virginia Woolf and others.

Lardner went on to write such well-known short stories as Haircut, Some Like Them Cold, The Golden Honeymoon, Alibi Ike, and A Day with Conrad Green.