Wolcott Gibbs

Wolcott Gibbs
Born
Oliver Wolcott Gibbs

(1902-03-15)March 15, 1902
DiedAugust 16, 1958(1958-08-16) (aged 56)
Occupation(s)Editor, critic, playwright, author
Spouses
Helen Marguerite Galpin
(m. 1926, divorced)
    Elizabeth Ada Crawford
    (m. 1929; died 1930)
      Elinor Mead Sherwin
      (m. 1933)

      Wolcott Gibbs (March 15, 1902 – August 16, 1958) was an American editor, humorist, theatre critic, playwright and writer of short stories, who worked for The New Yorker magazine from 1927 until his death. He is notable for his 1936 parody of Time magazine, which skewered the magazine's inverted narrative structure. Gibbs wrote, "Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind"; he concluded the piece, "Where it all will end, knows God!" He also wrote a comedy, Season in the Sun, which ran on Broadway for 10 months in 1950–51 and was based on a series of stories that originally appeared in The New Yorker.

      He was a friend and frequent editor of John O'Hara, who named his fictional town of "Gibbsville, Pa." for him.