Archy and mehitabel
Encyclopedia
Don Marquis
Donald Robert Perry Marquis was a humorist, journalist, and author. He was variously a novelist, poet, newspaper columnist, and playwright. He is remembered best for creating the characters "Archy" and "Mehitabel", supposed authors of humorous verse.-Life:...
beginning in 1916. Written as fictional social commentary and intended as a space-filler to allow Marquis to meet the challenge of writing a daily newspaper column six days a week, archy and mehitabel is Marquis' most famous work. Collections of these stories are still sold in print today. The published editions of these stories were originally illustrated by George Herriman
George Herriman
George Joseph Herriman was an American cartoonist, best known for his classic comic strip Krazy Kat.-Early life:...
, the creator and illustrator of Krazy Kat
Krazy Kat
Krazy Kat is an American comic strip created by cartoonist George Herriman, published daily in newspapers between 1913 and 1944. It first appeared in the New York Evening Journal, whose owner, William Randolph Hearst, was a major booster for the strip throughout its run...
.
History
In 1916, Marquis introduced Archy, a fictional cockroachCockroach
Cockroaches are insects of the order Blattaria or Blattodea, of which about 30 species out of 4,500 total are associated with human habitations...
, into his daily newspaper column at The New York Evening Sun
New York Sun (historical)
The Sun was a New York newspaper that was published from 1833 until 1950. It was considered a serious paper, like the city's two more successful broadsheets, The New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune...
. Archy (whose name was always written in lower case in the book titles, but was upper case when Marquis would write about him in narrative form) was a cockroach who had been a free verse
Free verse
Free verse is a form of poetry that refrains from consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern.Poets have explained that free verse, despite its freedom, is not free. Free Verse displays some elements of form...
poet in a previous life, and took to writing stories and poems on an old typewriter
Typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...
at the newspaper office when everyone in the building had left. Archy would climb up onto the typewriter and hurl himself at the keys, laboriously typing out stories of the daily challenges and travails of a cockroach. Archy's best friend was Mehitabel, an alley cat
Alley cat
Alley cat may refer to:*Stray cat, a homeless domestic cat; or, less probably:*Feral cat, a cat which has been separated from domestication*Alley Cat Rescue, an organization that rescues feral and homeless cats*Alley Cat , a 1984 action film...
. The two of them shared a series of day-to-day adventures that made satiric
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
commentary on daily life in the city during the 1910s and 1920s.
Because he was a cockroach, Archy was unable to operate the shift key on the typewriter (he jumped on each key to type; since using shift requires two keys to be pressed simultaneously, he physically could not use capitals), and so all of his verse was written without capitalization or punctuation. (Writing in his own persona, though, Marquis always used correct capitalization and punctuation. As E. B. White
E. B. White
Elwyn Brooks White , usually known as E. B. White, was an American writer. A long-time contributor to The New Yorker magazine, he also wrote many famous books for both adults and children, such as the popular Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little, and co-authored a widely used writing guide, The...
wrote in his introduction to The Lives and Times of Archy and Mehitabel, it would be incorrect to conclude that, "because Don Marquis's cockroach was incapable of operating the shift key of a typewriter, nobody else could operate it.")
There was at least one point in which Archy happened to jump onto the shift lock key—a chapter titled Capitals at Last (styled as CAPITALS AT LAST).
Publications
Collections of the "Archy" stories have been published and re-printed numerous times over the years. Titles in the series include:- Archy and Mehitabel (1927)
- Archys Life of Mehitabel (1933)
- Archy Does his Part (1935)
- The Lives and Times of Archy and Mehitabel (1940)
- Archyology (1996)
- Archyology II (1998)
- The Annotated Archy and Mehitabel (2006)
Archyology and Archyology II were compiled and published for the first time in the late 1990s. The Annotated Archy and Mehitabel was released in July 2006 with critical editing provided by Michael Sims
Michael Sims
Michael Sims is a noted American nonfiction writer, author most recently of The Story of Charlotte's Web . His other nonfiction books include In the Womb: Animals , Apollo’s Fire , Adam's Navel , and Darwin's Orchestra...
.
Theatre and film
A muscial version of the Archy and Mehitabel was recorded July 7th, 1953 & April 9th, 1954 titled archy and mehitabelShinbone Alley
Shinbone Alley is a musical with a book by Joe Darion and Mel Brooks, lyrics by Darion, and music by George Kleinsinger. Based on archy and mehitabel, a series of New York Tribune columns by Don Marquis, it focuses on poetic cockroach Archy, alley cat Mehitabel, and her relationships with...
with Carol Channing as Mehitabel and Eddie Bracken as Archy. It was followed by echoes of archy, recorded August 31st, 1954. The credits read: Words - Joe Darion, Music - George Kleinsinger. It was originally released as Columbia Masterworks ML 4963 in 1955, and was rereleased on CD, combined with the unrelated work Carnival of the Animals, as part of the Columbia Masterworks series.
The music and lyrics from the album were the basis of a short-lived 1957 loud and brassy Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
titled Shinbone Alley
Shinbone Alley
Shinbone Alley is a musical with a book by Joe Darion and Mel Brooks, lyrics by Darion, and music by George Kleinsinger. Based on archy and mehitabel, a series of New York Tribune columns by Don Marquis, it focuses on poetic cockroach Archy, alley cat Mehitabel, and her relationships with...
and starring Eddie Bracken
Eddie Bracken
Edward Vincent "Eddie" Bracken was an American actor.-Life and career:Bracken was born in Astoria, New York, the son of Catherine and Joseph L. Bracken. Bracken performed in vaudeville at the age of nine and gained fame with the Broadway musical Too Many Girls in a role he reprised for the 1940...
as Archy and Eartha Kitt
Eartha Kitt
Eartha Mae Kitt was an American singer, actress, and cabaret star. She was perhaps best known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 hit recordings of "C'est Si Bon" and the enduring Christmas novelty smash "Santa Baby." Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the...
as Mehitabel. It was based on the columns and on the Columbia Masterworks album, but with additional music by Kleinsinger and dialog by Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...
.
On May 16, 1960, an abridged version of the musical was broadcast under the original title archy & mehitabel as part of the syndicated TV anthology series Play of the Week presented by David Susskind. The cast included Bracken, Tammy Grimes, and Jules Munshin.
Some of the songs from the album were used in 1971 in an animated film, also called Shinbone Alley
Shinbone Alley (film)
Shinbone Alley is a 1971 animated feature film based on the Joe Darion, Mel Brooks, and George Kleinsinger musical of the same name as well as the original Archy and Mehitabel stories by Don Marquis. It was directed by John David Wilson.-Plot:...
. Directed by John Wilson, written by Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...
, and starring Eddie Bracken
Eddie Bracken
Edward Vincent "Eddie" Bracken was an American actor.-Life and career:Bracken was born in Astoria, New York, the son of Catherine and Joseph L. Bracken. Bracken performed in vaudeville at the age of nine and gained fame with the Broadway musical Too Many Girls in a role he reprised for the 1940...
and Carol Channing
Carol Channing
Carol Elaine Channing is an American singer, actress, and comedienne. She is the recipient of three Tony Awards , a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination...
, it was not a commercial success.
In popular culture
Archy has been known to make appearances in newspaper columns throughout the years by different newspaper writers.In the 3 August, 2007 issue of Science
Science (journal)
Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....
an editorial was run claiming to be written by Mehitabel commenting on a recent paper about the domestication of cats.