When I turned to a random page of the collected works of S.J. Perelman — newly available in a sleek, beetle-black edition, courtesy of the Library of America — here’s what I got: “Just in case anybody ...

Though he reached the ripe old age of 75, S.J. Perelman never burdened his readers with anything like a magnum opus. There is no solo-penned novel in the Perelman bibliography, and though he was a ...

S.J. Perelman rightly belongs on the Mount Rushmore of American humorists. Like many writers of his day, Perelman supported himself in Hollywood—he wrote two screenplays for the Marx Brothers and won ...

1. S.J. Perelman was unique among writers of humor, of any period, because his writing was a record of his reading. Imprinted for life by the pulp fiction, from Arthur Conan Doyle to Sax Rohmer, that ...

Employing the wit of the legendary humorist and cartoonist S. J. Perelman, originally a member of the class of 1925, Sean Kelly ’84 expounded on his film “The Sophisticated Silliness of S. J. Perelman ...

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ACRES AND PAINS (126 pp.)—S. J. Perelman—Reynal & Hitchcock ($2). The auctioneer’s voice boomed out the cow’s pedigree: “ZangwilPs Bijou Lass, the daughter of Throaty Contralto by that great sire ...

KEEP IT CRISP (272 pp.)—S. J. Perelman—Random House ($2.50). The dentist strapped Sidney Joseph Perelman into the chair with six towels and forced his jaws apart with a blunt instrument. “Now then, ...