Will Cuppy

Will Cuppy was born in Auburn, Indiana, in 1884 and studied at the University of Chicago before making his career in New York. A newspaper columnist and magazine writer, he contributed to publications including the New York Herald Tribune and The New Yorker. His work grew out of a lively American tradition of literary journalism: the writer observes familiar subjects, gathers telling details, and turns them into comedy. Cuppy brought that approach to history and natural history alike, drawing on research while resisting the solemn tone often attached to both. He died in 1949, leaving readers a body of writing that still feels invitingly conversational.

Cuppy’s best-known book, The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody, makes comic portraits of historical figures, while How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes and How to Be a Hermit show his appetite for skewering human habits and conventions. His humor depends on precise observation, mock seriousness, and the pleasing contrast between careful information and an irreverent punch line. He was particularly good at puncturing grand claims and exposing the oddities beneath respectable appearances, without making his writing feel like a lecture. The books collected after his death, including How to Become Extinct, extend his playful interest in animals and the natural world. Listeners can dip into Cuppy’s work for quick, sharply turned pieces, or settle in for his longer comic portraits.