Afflicted by bad eyesight and eventual blindness, James Thurber had good reason to bemoan the advancing darkness and the racing years, as, in ["Selected Letters of James Thurber"], he does. The miracle is that under such a burden he wrote 27 books (starting at the age of 35) that cheered millions of people with their humor and perpetual surprise. His drawings were uniquely antic; his prose was a marvel of sonority and warmth. In these public offerings the rest of us could glimpse some of the fears and bewilderments that vexed the private man, and because they were very much like our own fears and bewilderments—and our Mitty-like dreams—we cherished his writing.

But that was because Thurber had labored to turn ordinary life into art. He rewrote endlessly; he was obsessive about achieving control of his material….

I think Thurber would squirm to see these first drafts of...