Inspiration comes from many places. Today’s blog post inspiration came from the Richard Wright quote of last week, when I went looking for an image of Mr. Wright to use as the focal point. His postage stamp led me to wonder what other literary wordsmiths had been immortalized on postage stamps.
The USPS started the Literary Arts series in 1979. According to the USPS, “These skillful wordsmiths spun our favorite tales — and American history along with them.”
The full list of Literary Arts postage stamps can be found on the USPS website. I will be highlighting two per day this week, with perhaps a second week to come later on.
Today’s highlighted Literary Giants are John Steinbeck and Dorothy Parker.
John Steinbeck 15¢
(1902-1968)
Issue date: February 27, 1979
City: Salinas, CA
Quantity: 155,000,000
John Steinbeck was the first to be honored on the Literary Arts series. Steinbeck’s novels mirrored America’s struggle and victory over the Great Depression. His most famous novel, The Grapes of Wrath won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940. Other Steinbeck novels include Of Mice and Men, The Winter of Our Discontent, The Pearl, Cannery Row and Tortilla Flat.
I love the Paris Review’s “The Art of Fiction” interviews. If you haven’t read them, start with Steinbeck, Interview No. 45.
Listen to Steinbeck read two of his short stories, “The Snake” and “Johnny Bear” in 1953.
Dorothy Parker 29¢
(1893-1967)
Issue date: August 22, 1992
City: West End, NJ
Quantity: 105,000,000
Dorothy Parker is 10th in the Literary Arts series. Famous for her verses and her stories, she worked for Vogue and Vanity Fair, becoming their drama critic. She was published in Vanity Fair, Ladies Home Journal, Saturday Evening Post, Life (when it was still a comic magazine), and The New Yorker, run by her old friend, Harold Ross.
American journalist Vincent Sheean said: “Among contemporary artists, I would put her next to Hemingway and Bill Faulkner. She wasn’t Shakespeare, but what she was, was true.” John Keats in his biography of her, You Might as Well Live (1970) stated: “She wrote poetry that was at least as good as the best of Millay and Housman. She wrote some stories that are easily as good as some of O’Hara and Hemingway.”
A founding member of the legendary Algonquin Round Table, she was best known for her wit. Among her more memorable quotes are, “I don’t care what is written about me as long as it isn’t true” and “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.”
Read Dorothy Parker’s Paris Review’s “Art of Fiction” Interview No. 13.
Have you heard Dorothy Parker’s voice? You can hear her reading 30 of her poems at The Dorothy Parker Society.
Note: Featured stamp collection image courtesy of Birmingham Coin & Jewelry.
Check out the rest of the “Give A Lick” series:
Flannery O’Connor and Ralph Ellison
Humorists Ogden Nash and James Thurber
[Bonus: James Thurber Cartoon]
