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Ring Lardner (1885–1933)

Author of You know Me Al: A Busher's Letters

105+ Works 1,637 Members 31 Reviews 4 Favorited

About the Author

Ringgold Wilmer Lardner was born on March 6, 1885 in Niles, Mich. His unusual first name came from the Civil War Union admiral Cadwallader Ringgold, but he disliked his name and shortened it to Ring. Although he came to journalism somewhat by chance, taking a position that had originally been show more offered to his brother, Lardner soon found his niche, writing first about sports, particularly baseball, and later a humor column. Lardner worked as a sportswriter for several papers, including the Chicago American, the Boston American, and The Chicago Tribune. Eventually he began to write short stories, and today he is best known for his stories about baseball, and in particular You Know Me Al, a series of letters from Jack Keefe, a fictional baseball star, to his hometown friend, Al. The letters first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in 1914, and then were published in book form in 1916. Other short-story collections include Round Up, The Busher Returns, Gullible's Travels, and First and Last. Lardner also wrote one novel, The Big Town, and collaborated with George S. Kaufman on the play June Moon, which opened on Broadway in 1929 and was filmed a year later. Ring Lardner died in East Hampton, Long Island, N.Y. in 1933. Lardner's son, Ring Lardner, Jr., is also a writer whose credits include the screenplay for the movie M*A*S*H. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Disambiguation Notice:

Ring Lardner, 1885-1933, was the father of Ring Lardner, Jr., 1915-2000. Please do not combine these authors.

Works by Ring Lardner

Haircut and Other Stories (1954) 141 copies
Selected Stories (1997) 95 copies
Round Up (1924) 73 copies
Some Champions (1976) 56 copies
Gullible's Travels, Etc. (1917) 43 copies
Lardner on Baseball (2003) 41 copies
Best of Ring Lardner (1984) 40 copies
The Ring Lardner Reader (1963) 34 copies
The Portable Ring Lardner (1777) 32 copies
The Big Town (1949) 26 copies
What of it? (1925) 17 copies
Lardner on War (2003) 14 copies
The Real Dope (2008) 10 copies
All for love (1985) 6 copies
Champion (2017) 5 copies
My Four Weeks in France (1918) 5 copies
Bib Ballads (1915) 5 copies
The Golden Honeymoon (2005) 4 copies
The Young Immigrunts (1920) 4 copies
Unetus : novelle (2004) 4 copies
The Love Nest (1926) 3 copies
I Can't Breathe 3 copies
First and Last (1834) 2 copies
Ci sono sorrisi... (2013) 2 copies
Dix nouvelles (1992) 2 copies
Campeón (2014) 2 copies
Zone Or Quiet 2 copies
Ex Parte (1929) 2 copies
Own Your Own Home (2007) 2 copies
The Real Dope (2010) 1 copy
Great Golfers (1970) 1 copy
Urban Cowboy 1 copy
BIR DERT KI 1 copy
Prohibition Blues (1919) — Lyricist — 1 copy
Harmony 1 copy
Hurry Kane 1 copy
Horseshoes 1 copy
Anniversary 1 copy
Reunion 1 copy
Travelogue 1 copy
My Roomy 1 copy
The Water Cure (2004) 1 copy
Three Kings And A Pair (2004) 1 copy
Carmen 1 copy
Mr. Frisbie 1 copy
Who Dealt? 1 copy
Liberty Hall 1 copy
Alibi Ike 1 copy

Associated Works

The Best American Short Stories of the Century (2000) — Contributor — 1,552 copies
50 Great Short Stories (1952) — Contributor — 1,242 copies
Short Story Masterpieces (1954) — Contributor — 675 copies
The Oxford Book of Short Stories (1981) — Contributor — 510 copies
The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century (2000) — Contributor — 452 copies
Fifty Great American Short Stories (1965) — Contributor — 430 copies
Baseball: A Literary Anthology (2002) — Contributor — 335 copies
A Treasury of Short Stories (1947) — Contributor — 291 copies
The Best of Modern Humor (1983) — Contributor — 291 copies
24 Favorite One Act Plays (1958) — Contributor — 283 copies
100 Years of the Best American Short Stories (2015) — Contributor — 282 copies
A Subtreasury of American Humor (1941) — Contributor — 276 copies
Russell Baker's Book of American Humor (1993) — Contributor — 207 copies
The Best American Sports Writing of the Century (1999) — Contributor — 191 copies
The Penguin Book of American Short Stories (1969) — Contributor — 188 copies
Twenty Grand Short Stories (1967) — Contributor — 157 copies
An Anthology of Famous American Stories (1953) — Contributor — 137 copies
The Saturday Evening Post Treasury (1954) — Contributor — 137 copies
The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories (2015) — Contributor — 137 copies
The Scribner Treasury: 22 Classic Tales (1952) — Contributor — 99 copies
The Best American Humorous Short Stories (1945) — Contributor — 82 copies
Baseball's Best Short Stories (1995) — Contributor — 79 copies
The Oxford Book of Travel Stories (1996) — Contributor — 74 copies
Bedside Book of Famous American Stories (1936) — Contributor — 71 copies
200 Years of Great American Short Stories (1975) — Contributor — 68 copies
Desert Island Decameron (1945) — Contributor — 57 copies
100 Hilarious Little Howlers (1999) — Contributor — 53 copies
Reading for Pleasure (1957) — Contributor — 51 copies
Great Baseball Stories (1979) — Contributor — 47 copies
Masters of the Modern Short Story (1945) — Contributor — 46 copies
The Bedside Tales: A Gay Collection (1945) — Contributor — 45 copies
The Random House Book of Sports Stories (1990) — Contributor — 45 copies
Fifty Best American Short Stories 1915-1965 (1965) — Contributor — 36 copies
An American Omnibus (1933) — Contributor — 31 copies
50 Best American Short Stories 1915-1939 (1939) — Contributor — 28 copies
American short stories, 1820 to the present (1952) — Contributor — 26 copies
Racconti Gialli (1992) — Author — 20 copies
Ellery Queen's Mystery Mix (1962) — Contributor — 19 copies
Modern American Short Stories (1945) — Contributor — 15 copies
American Short Stories, Vol.5, The Twentieth Century (1957) — Author, some editions — 11 copies
Champion [1949 film] (1949) — Original story — 11 copies
Tales for Males (1945) — Contributor — 11 copies
The American Twenties: a Literary Panorama (1952) — Contributor — 10 copies
A Cavalcade of Collier's (1959) — Contributor — 10 copies
The best of the Best American short stories, 1915-1950 (1975) — Contributor — 10 copies
A Treasury of Doctor Stories (1946) — Contributor — 9 copies
World's Great Humorous Stories (1944) — Contributor — 9 copies
George S. Kaufman and His Collaborators: Three Plays (1984) — Contributor — 6 copies
Not for Children (1930) — Introduction — 6 copies
The Story Survey (1953) — Contributor — 6 copies
The bear went over the mountain (1964) — Contributor — 6 copies
The Fireside Treasury of Modern Humor (1963) — Contributor — 5 copies
Modern Short Stories — Contributor — 3 copies
The Bathroom Reader (1946) — Contributor — 3 copies
Eyes of Boyhood (1953) — Contributor — 2 copies
American Humor and Satire (1992) — Contributor — 2 copies
The College Short Story Reader (1948) — Contributor — 2 copies
Enjoying Stories (1987) — Contributor — 2 copies
Modern British and American short stories (1982) — Contributor — 1 copy
14 American Masterpieces Vol.1 — Contributor — 1 copy
Modern American short stories (1963) — Contributor — 1 copy

Tagged

19th century (23) 20th century (103) 20th century literature (24) American (112) American fiction (33) American literature (234) anthology (736) baseball (243) classic (36) classics (46) collection (98) drama (63) ebook (23) English (24) essays (71) fiction (1,117) hardcover (40) humor (441) Library of America (119) literature (281) LOA (41) Modern Library (28) mystery (130) non-fiction (55) novel (22) own (52) paperback (29) plays (56) poetry (25) read (33) Ring Lardner (35) short fiction (63) short stories (1,232) short story (96) sports (135) stories (140) theatre (30) to-read (248) unread (93) USA (40)

Common Knowledge

Birthdate
1885-03-06
Date of death
1933-09-25
Gender
male
Nationality
USA
Birthplace
Niles, Michigan, USA
Place of death
East Hampton, New York, USA
Education
Armour Institute of Technology
Occupations
sports columnist
short story writer
Relationships
Lardner, Ring, Jr. (son)
Lardner, Kate (granddaughter)
Lardner, George (grandson)
Lardner, John (son)
Lardner Jr., George (great-nephew)
Organizations
Chicago Tribune
South Bend Times
Short biography
Ringgold Wilmer "Ring" Lardner (March 5, 1885 – September 25, 1933) was an American sports columnist and short-story writer.
Disambiguation notice
Ring Lardner, 1885-1933, was the father of Ring Lardner, Jr., 1915-2000. Please do not combine these authors.

Members

Reviews

Not much here. One sided exchange of letters from a nineteen-teens ballplayer.

I was ready to be done with him by the end, I hope he did make the trip overseas. and don't much care if he came back to baby Al.
 
Flagged
kcshankd | 12 other reviews | Dec 18, 2023 |
$40. Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition
 
Flagged
susangeib | Sep 20, 2023 |
FROM AMAZON: You Know Me, Al is a classic of baseball, the game and the community. Jack Keefe, one of literature's great characters, is talented, brash, and conceited. Self-assured and imperceptive, impervious to both advice and sarcasm, Keefe rises to the heights, but his inability to learn makes for his undoing. Through a series of letters from this bush-league pitcher to his not-quite-anonymous friend Al, Lardner maintains a balance between the funny and the moving, the pathetic and the glorious.
Nostalgic in its view of pre-World War I America, a time before the "live" ball, a time filled with names like Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, and Eddie Cicotte, this is not a simple period piece. It is about competition, about the ability to reason, and most of all it is about being human.
… (more)
 
Flagged
Gmomaj | 12 other reviews | Jan 22, 2023 |
Like a Dana Carvey character in a recurring SNL sketch, Jack Keefe quickly wears out his welcome. The ignorance, the gullibility, the illiteracy, and the Berra-like malapropisms are entertaining for about the first chapter.

I had hopes that this would be a sort of What Did You Do During The War, Daddy? tale; instead it is just pointless buffoonery.
 
Flagged
mkfs | 1 other review | Aug 13, 2022 |

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Works
105
Also by
76
Members
1,637
Popularity
#15,692
Rating
3.8
Reviews
31
ISBNs
168
Languages
8
Favorited
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