bio notes:
born: 12/8/1894
died: 11/2/1961
born as: James Thurber

American writer and cartoonist noted for his vison of the urban man as one who escapes into fantasy because he is befuddled and beset by a world that he neither created nor understands. Thurber's best-known portrait of this character is probably Walter Mitty. Thurber's stock characters-the snarling wife, her timid, hapless husband, and a roster of serene, silently observing animals-have become classics of urban mythology. - Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature