ABSTRACT

Abbott Joseph Liebling was born in New York City on October 8, 1904, the son of Joseph Liebling, a prosperous furrier and Anna Slone Liebling. He attended Dartmouth College and the School of Journalism at Columbia University, from which he graduated in 1925. Joining the sports department of the New York Times, he worked there for eight months before being fired. In 1926, Liebling went to Paris and studied at the Sorbonne for a brief time. He learned about French cooking, which engaged his interest and appetite from then on. Returning to the United States in 1927, he was employed by the Providence Journal and the Evening Bulletin as a reporter and feature writer for three years. Liebling worked on the New York World-Telegram from 1931 to 1935; he wrote more than one thousand feature articles. When he was refused a raise, he quit and worked for a time for King Features' Evening Journal Magazine.