Emdashes. The New Yorker between the lines
Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
Our Daily Comic: The Wavy Rule
Archive: Ask the Librarians
Send us a question!
Frequently:
Headline Shooter
Seal Barks
Eustace Google
Looked Into
Hath There Been Such a Time—I'd Frayn Know That—That I Have Positively Said "Tis So," When It Proved Otherwise?
Filed under: Headline Shooter Tagged: fiction, William Shawn
From Christopher Tindall in the Guardian:
Mystery of fictional Fleet Street editor solved
New Yorker's William Shawn named as model for character in Frayn classic
He was the shadowy, elusive editor who preferred his staff to persecute those he wanted out of the door rather than sack them face to face in the quintessential Fleet Street novel.
But the inspiration behind the "short, rather fat man in a shapeless raincoat and a shapeless trilby hat" in Michael Frayn's 1967 classic Towards the End of the Morning has remained as mysterious as the man whose only form of communication with the world during office hours was pushing typed notes to his secretary through a serving hatch.
Now, almost 40 years after writing what is still revered as one of the funniest portrayals of the dying days of Fleet Street - before Rupert Murdoch's flit to Wapping and the scattering of newspaper offices that followed - the author has revealed who he based his editor on. And his inspiration could hardly have lived further away from the narrow lanes and grimy offices that once bore witness to the activities of many legendary journalists.
"It's based on a real editor, which I can reveal now that he is dead. It was William Shawn, the famous editor of the New Yorker," Frayn says. "He was somewhat more eccentric than the fictitious version. He was a great and wonderful editor, but he was a very, very strange man."
Strange, but infinitely courteous and unpresumptuous, according to his New York Times obituary. Shawn was described by JD Salinger as the "most unreasonably modest of born great artist-editors". Continued.
Thanks to Ron Hogan for the swell tip!
About us
Hello! We are media enthusiasts and culture addicts—not to mention classically trained (as we like to say) professional journalists. This is our collection of generally civilized conversations about magazines, movies, politics, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
You'd like to read more about us individually? That's so nice! Here you can learn a lot more about the Emdashes team, the mysterious-sounding names of our daily and non-daily columns, and our guest contributors.
We welcome tips, questions, and comments, and are always looking for ardent new contributors who care about letters (postal, typographical, admiring, literary, and tough-love). Here's how to contact us.
Occasionally, we host book giveaways, and review books here as often as we can. Publishers, please e-mail us and we'll send you an appropriate mailing address.
Tell me more
They say that dashes “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like em dashes—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is currently written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. (Unsigned posts through October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.)
The site is designed and maintained by House of Pretty and illustrated by Jesse Ewing for Inkleaf Studio. Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (who also draws our daily comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The kissable Emdashes logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World; PDF, p. 20)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, man about town, and New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Report: Learning to read with comic books--that are edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
- Interview: Designer Eleanor Grosch (for Print)
- Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Review: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Report: Eustace Tilley spruces up for The New Yorker's website redesign (for Print)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
- Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
- Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
No fear
Everything you tell or send us is off the record unless we ask for your permission to use it.
T-shirts! The Emdashes Emporium at CafePress.