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Christopher Morley was one of the most celebrated American authors of the 1920s and 1930s. Best known as the author of Parnassus on Wheels and Kitty Foyle, Morley wrote for a popular audience that keenly appreciated his style, his wit, and his exuberant championing of the written word.
Morley wrote most of the pieces collected in this volume from 1918 to 1920, while a columnist for the Philadelphia Evening Ledger. His assignment: to "saunter" around town and the Philadelphia suburbs, and then - usually after a leisurely lunch - report back. The result was a series of lively essays that, read now, not only reveals a city's colorful past, but sheds light on its present: much of the Philadelphia Morley explored remains intact for the native or visitor with the eye and patience to discover it. Morley's best Philadelphia work, scattered among 12 volumes published during his lifetime, have been collected in this handsome new book, which includes period illustrations by Walter Jack Duncan and Frank Taylor, and a critical introduction by Ken Kalfus.
Published on May 5, 1990, on the 100th anniversary of Morley's birth, Christopher Morley's Philadelphia brings together numerous essays that have been out of print for 50 years or longer. The book joins Fordham University Press's 1988 collection, Christopher Morley's New York, as a lasting contribution to the Morley oeuvre.
About the author
Christopher Morley was an American journalist, novelist, essayist, and poet who lived from May 5, 1890, until March 28, 1957. He also provided college lectures and staged theater performances for a while. Pennsylvania's Bryn Mawr is where Morley was born. Christopher's mother, Lilian Janet Bird, was a violinist who greatly influenced his subsequent love of literature and poetry. His father, Frank Morley, was a mathematics professor at Haverford College. The family relocated to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1900. Christopher enrolled in Haverford College in 1906 and graduated as valedictorian in 1910. Then, on a Rhodes scholarship, he spent three years at New College in Oxford studying modern history. After completing his studies at Oxford, Morley relocated to New York City. He wed Helen Booth Fairchild on June 14, 1914, and the two of them had four kids together, including Louise Morley Cochrane. They initially resided in Hempstead before moving to Queens Village. After that, they relocated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, before making their last transfer to a residence they named "Green Escape" in Roslyn Estates, New York, in 1920. For the rest of his life, they stayed there.
