ABSTRACT

Author, critic, humorist and self-proclaimed hermit, Will Cuppy holds a unique place in American humor for the prodigious amount of research that preceded each of his works. William Jacob Cuppy was born in Auburn, Indiana, on August 23, 1884. His parents, Thomas Jefferson Cuppy and Mary Frances Stahl Cuppy, were descended from pioneers who had come originally from South Carolina. Cuppy attended Auburn High School, and after graduating in 1902, entered the University of Chicago. Cuppy's first book came about at the request of the university administration that he create some traditions for their newly founded fraternity. Cuppy was a retiring man with an inferiority complex, according to his friend, editor Burton Rascoe. After Cuppy's death his friend and literary executor, Fred Feldkamp, produced two more books from the more than 200 card boxes full of notes that Cuppy left.