Journal of Southern History

Irvin S. Cobb, born (1876) and buried (1944) in Paducah, Kentucky, is one of the forgotten but venerable writers who began his career as a completely uncredentialed cub reporter for the Paducah Evening News. By age nineteen he [End Page 1042] was in charge of the newspaper, "'the worst managing editor of any age,'" he later wrote (p. 8). But by 1926 Cobb already had to his credit fourteen titles in fiction, twenty in "wit and humor," and five in "miscellany" (p. 151).

Friend to Will Rogers, hobnobber with the likes of Theodore Dreiser, Dorothy Parker, and Laurel and Hardy, the Cobb whom William E. Ellis evokes had the good sense to be the "'professional Southerner'" that one of his New York editor friends feared he would be, and this surely accounts for much of Cobb's success: though an expatriate of Paducah, Cobb was clear in his intent, at least in the Judge Priest stories that he is best known for, to render the South truthfully (p. 82). He was also possessed of a prodigious literary talent exceeded only by his capacity for hard work—until both were later exceeded by his capacity to eat, drink, and spend. That, plus the market crash of 1929, plus changing public tastes, plus many other factors, contributed to his "fall," which was not much of a fall: at his apogee Cobb was a millionaire; at his death his estate was still worth nearly half a million.

Ellis allows that Cobb could be "pompous . . . and long-winded," "too sure of himself . . . and too benevolently racist." But given Cobb's stature in his day—"he was a well-known newspaperman, essayist, short story writer, humorist, and movie personality," not to mention war correspondent and lecturer—and given the abiding evidence of Cobb's talent, Ellis hopes to "establish" Cobb's place, claiming that the story of Cobb's rise and fall "illustrates the history of humor in Kentucky, the Upper South, and the nation" and "exemplifies the pace of change in his lifetime" (pp. 2, 3).

The book is true to its purpose of being a literary biography; it also delivers on its claim that Cobb's life is emblematic of changes that registered on a larger scale. Ellis, a historian, keeps the main story grounded in its larger historical context, but the main story is that of a skinny reporter (nicknamed "Bonesy" in his youth) who by writing (and self-deprecation) became a corpulent Man-about-Hollywood. ("'[W]hen I got fat,'" Cobb wrote, "'I capitalized my fatness in the printed word'" [p. 28].)

Ellis understands that his subject was a man of great wit and that he should be allowed to speak as much for himself as possible: concerning Theodore Roosevelt's throat troubles, Cobb wrote, "'When did Teddy stop talking long enough for a doctor to look down him?'" (p. 32). On a British writer who snubbed the food at a dinner in his honor and later walked out on it: "'To Arnold Bennett, our late but not lamented guest, whose presence has made us all the fonder of his absence'" (p. 53). On booze: "'I drink a cocktail when I am reasonably certain that the effect will not be immediately fatal'" (p. 155).

There is much to learn from this book about the man who gave us so much for the apparent purpose of forgetting it: Cobb's manner of dealing with the acerbic H. L. Mencken; his initial isolationism regarding both world wars, a coat he turned in both conflicts; his opposition to prohibition and to anti-evolutionary fervor; his support for women's rights; and even his limited support for the rights of black people, notwithstanding his admitted white supremacist views. The thing to do is read Cobb's books if you can find them, but this is a good alternative if you cannot. [End Page 1043...