During his childhood he was unable to participate in sports and activities because of his injury, and instead developed a creative imagination, which he shared in his writings.įrom 1913 to 1918, Thurber attended The Ohio State University, where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity. This injury would later cause him to be almost entirely blind. Because of the lack of medical technology, Thurber lost his eye. Once, while playing a game of William Tell, his brother William shot James in the eye with an arrow. Thurber had two brothers, William and Robert. Thurber described his mother as a 'born comedienne' and 'one of the finest comic talents I think I have ever known.' She was a practical joker, on one occasion pretending to be crippled and attending a faith healer revival, only to jump up and proclaim herself healed. His father, a sporadically employed clerk and minor politician who dreamed of being a lawyer or an actor, is said to have been the inspiration for the small, timid protagonist typical of many of his stories. Both of his parents greatly influenced his work. Thurber and Mary Agnes (Mame) Fisher Thurber. Thurber was born in Columbus, Ohio to Charles L. Mine is being wicked ), while wondering at the enigmatic Golux, the mysterious stranger whose unpredictable interventions speed the story to its necessarily happy end. Readers young and old will take pleasure in this tale of love forestalled but ultimately fulfilled, admiring its upstanding hero ( He yearned to find in a far land the princess of his dreams, singing as he went, and possibly slaying a dragon here and there ) and unapologetic villain ( We all have flaws, the Duke said. So begins James Thurber s sublimely revamped fairy tale, The 13 Clocks, in which a wicked Duke who imagines he has killed time, and the Duke s beautiful niece, for whom time seems to have run out, both meet their match, courtesy of an enterprising and very handsome prince in disguise. He wore gloves when he was asleep, and he wore gloves when he was awake, which made it difficult for him to pick up pins or coins or the kernels of nuts, or to tear the wings from nightingales.

His hands were as cold as his smile, and almost as cold as his heart. She was warm in every wind and weather, but he was always cold. Once upon a time, in a gloomy castle on a lonely hill, where there were thirteen clocks that wouldn t go, there lived a cold, aggressive Duke, and his niece, the Princess Saralinda.

The 13 Clocks by James Thurber