Ring Lardner facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Ring Lardner
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Lardner in 1921
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| Born | Ringgold Wilmer Lardner March 6, 1885 Niles, Michigan, United States |
| Died | September 25, 1933 (aged 48) East Hampton, New York, United States |
| Occupation | Writer, journalist |
| Spouse | Ellis Abbot |
| Children | John, James, Ring Jr., and David |
Ring Lardner (born March 6, 1885 – died September 25, 1933) was an American writer. He was famous for his sports columns and short stories. Many of his stories were funny and made fun of sports, marriage, and plays.
Other famous writers like Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, and F. Scott Fitzgerald really admired his work. Author John O'Hara even said Lardner taught him how to write realistic conversations.
Contents
Early Life and Interests
Ring Lardner was born in Niles, Michigan. His parents, Henry and Lena Phillips Lardner, were wealthy. He was the youngest of nine children. His full name was Ringgold Wilmer Lardner, but he preferred "Ring." He even named one of his sons Ring Jr.
As a child, he wore a leg brace until he was eleven years old. He loved baseball, plays, and music. He later studied at the Armour Institute in Chicago.
Writing Career Begins
Ring Lardner started his writing journey as a sports writer. His first job was with the South Bend Times newspaper in 1905. In 1907, he moved to Chicago. There, he worked for the Inter-Ocean and later the Chicago Examiner. He also wrote for the Tribune.
Two years later, Lardner was in St. Louis. He wrote a funny baseball column called Pullman Pastimes for Sporting News. Some of these writings became part of his book, You Know Me Al. Soon after, he worked for the Boston American.
Newspaper Columns
In 1913, Lardner returned to the Chicago Tribune. This newspaper became the main home for his popular column, In the Wake of the News. This column was printed in over 100 newspapers. It is still published in the Tribune today.
Lardner's newspaper writing wasn't just about sports. He also wrote about his experiences near the World War One front. These stories were put into a book called My Four Weeks in France.
Famous Books and Stories
In 1916, Lardner published his first very successful book, You Know Me Al. This book was written as letters from a baseball player named "Jack Keefe." Jack was a minor league player writing to a friend back home. The letters used Jack's unique way of speaking.
This book was first published as six separate stories in The Saturday Evening Post. Many people loved it. Journalist Andrew Ferguson called it one of the best American humor books.
Baseball and Betrayal
In 1919, something happened that changed how Lardner felt about baseball. This was the Black Sox scandal. In this event, some players from the Chicago White Sox were accused of losing the World Series on purpose. Ring Lardner was very close to the White Sox team. He felt betrayed by them. After this, his sports writing often showed a sense of doubt about the game's fairness. His last baseball stories were in the book Lose with a Smile (1933).
Lardner also wrote other famous stories. These include "Haircut," "Some Like Them Cold," and "The Golden Honeymoon." He continued writing about Jack Keefe, the character from You Know Me Al. Jack's letters from a World War I training camp were collected in Treat 'Em Rough: Letters From Jack the Kaiser Killer.
Theatre and Music Work
Ring Lardner loved the theatre his whole life. He wrote a few successful plays for Broadway. One was Elmer The Great, which he wrote with George M. Cohan. Another was June Moon, written with Broadway writer George S. Kaufman.
He also wrote short funny skits for the Ziegfeld Follies. He created a series of silly plays that made fun of how plays were usually made. These plays had funny and impossible stage directions, like "The curtain is lowered for seven days to denote the lapse of a week."
Lardner was also a talented composer and songwriter. He wrote songs for his first and last published plays. He wrote songs for famous singers like Bert Williams and Nora Bayes. He also worked with well-known composers like Jerome Kern and Vincent Youmans.
Lardner's Lasting Influence
Ring Lardner's books were published by Maxwell Perkins. Perkins also worked with other famous writers like Fitzgerald and Hemingway. Even though Lardner didn't think his own short stories were very important, he greatly influenced many famous writers:
- He was partly the inspiration for a character named Abe North in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, Tender Is the Night.
- Ernest Hemingway was also influenced by Lardner. Hemingway even used the name Ring Lardner, Jr. as a pen name for his high school newspaper.
- Lardner's skill with writing realistic conversations deeply influenced writer John O'Hara. O'Hara said he learned from Lardner that writing speech as people truly talk creates real characters.
Personal Life
Ring Lardner married Ellis Abbott in 1911. They had four sons: John, James, Ring Jr., and David. All of their sons became professional writers.
Ring Lardner passed away on September 25, 1933. He was 48 years old. He died in East Hampton, New York, from a heart attack caused by complications from tuberculosis.
His Sons, Also Writers
- John Lardner was a newspaper writer, sports columnist, and magazine writer.
- James Lardner was also a newspaper writer. He died fighting in the Spanish Civil War with the International Brigades.
- Ring Lardner Jr. became a successful screenwriter. After World War II, he faced difficulties in his career due to political reasons. He won two Academy Awards for his screenplays. One was for Woman of the Year in 1942, and the other was for M*A*S*H in 1970. His book, The Lardners, My Family Remembered, shares information about his father.
- David Lardner worked for The New Yorker as a reporter and war correspondent. He was killed by a landmine in Germany in 1944, less than a month after arriving in Europe.
Great-Nephew
- George Lardner, Jr., Ring Lardner's great-nephew, is also a journalist. He has worked at The Washington Post since 1963 and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1993.
Works by Ring Lardner
Plays
- Zanzibar: A Comic Opera in Two Acts (1903) (with Harry Schmidt)
- In Allah's Garden (1913) (words by Ring Lardner, music by Aubrey Stauffer)
Selected Books
- Bib Ballads (1915)
- You Know Me Al – A Busher’s Letters (1916)
- Gullible's Travels, Etc. (1917)
- Treat 'em Rough: Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer (1918)
- My Four Weeks in France (1918)
- Own Your Own Home (1919)
- The Young Immigrunts (1920)
- The Big Town: How I and the Mrs. Go to New York to See Life and Get Katie a Husband (1921)
- 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: Being the Autobiography of Ring Lardner (1927)
- Round Up: The Stories of Ring W. Lardner (1929)
- June Moon (1929) (with George S. Kaufman)
See also
In Spanish: Ring Lardner para niños
- Donald Elder, author of Ring Lardner, A Biography
