Wolcott Gibbs

Wolcott Gibbs (March 15, 1902 – August 16, 1958) was an American editor, humorist, theatre critic, playwright and writer of short stories, who worked for The New Yorker magazine from 1927 until his death. He is notable for his 1936 parody of Time magazine, which skewered the magazine's inverted narrative structure. Gibbs wrote, "Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind"; he concluded the piece, "Where it all will end, knows God!" He also wrote a comedy, Season in the Sun, which ran on Broadway for 10 months in 1950–51 and was based on a series of stories that originally appeared in The New Yorker.

He was a friend and frequent editor of John O'Hara, who named his fictional town of "Gibbsville, Pa." for him.

Early life Gibbs was born in New York City on March 15, 1902. Through his maternal grandfather, he was a descendant of William Duer, a member of the Continental Congress and signer of the United States Articles of Confederation, He was also a descendant of Oliver Wolcott Sr., signer of the Declaration of Independence, and Secretary of the Treasury under George Washington and John Adams. He also descended from the Livingston family and the Schuyler family. Gibbs was closely associated with many of its leading names, inheriting the job of theatre critic at The New Yorker from Robert Benchley in 1938. On numerous occasions, in print and in person, Gibbs expressed an intense dislike for Woollcott as both an author and as a person. In a letter to James Thurber, in fact, Gibbs wrote that he thought Woollcott was "one of the most dreadful writers who ever existed." Thomas Kunkel asserts in his biography of New Yorker founder Harold Ross, Genius in Disguise, that a profile of Alexander Woollcott written by Gibbs sparked the disassociation of Woollcott and the magazine.

For many years, Gibbs was also the editor and publisher of The Fire Islander a weekly newspaper on Fire Island, where he had a vacation home.

Personal life Gibbs was married three times. His first marriage was on July 24, 1926, to Helen Marguerite Galpin, the daughter of William Galpin (an English butler who worked for Mortimer Schiff).

After Elizabeth's death, he began a nearly three-year relationship with writer Nancy Hale, who was then married to Taylor Scott Hardin. Hale refused to leave Hardin for Gibbs (although she did eventually divorce Hardin and married Charles Wertenbaker and, later, Fredson Bowers). Together, they were the parents of two children:

Wolcott Gibbs Jr. (b. 1935), known as "Tony," who married Elizabeth Villa in 1958. He has written extensively about yachting and was an editor at The New Yorker for several years in the 1980s. Janet Gibbs, who married James Ward. He was buried at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. His widow died on July 30, 1963, of burns she received in a fire at her New York home, 352 East 50th Street.

Fiction

——————— Bibliography notes