| 词条 | Willard R. Espy |
| 释义 |
| name = Willard R. Espy | image = Willard R. Espy (1977).jpg | alt = | pseudonym = | birth_name= Willard Richardson Espy | birth_date = {{Birth date|1910|12|11}} | birth_place = Olympia, Washington, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|1999|02|20|1910|12|11}} | death_place = New York City, New York, U.S. | occupation = {{hlist|Writer| poet|philologist}} | nationality = | spouse = {{marriage|Hilda Cole|1940}} {{marriage|Louise Manheim|1962|1999|reason=his death}} | resting_place= Oysterville Cemetery, Oysterville, Washington, U.S. | resting_place_coordinates= {{coord|46.54787|-124.03373}} | alma_mater= University of Redlands | genre = {{hlist|Light verse | local history }} | notableworks = An Almanac of Words at Play Oysterville: Roads to Grandpa's Village }} Willard Richardson Espy (December 11, 1910{{spaced en dash}}February 20, 1999) was an American editor, philologist, writer, poet, and local historian. Raised in the seaside village of Oysterville, Washington, Espy later studied at the University of Redlands in California before becoming an editor in New York City, as well as a contributor to Reader's Digest, The New Yorker, Punch, and other publications. In the 1960s, he began publishing books on philology as well collections of poetry collections, and became the best-known collector of and commentator on word play of his time.[1] In 1977, he published the national bestseller Oysterville: Roads to Grandpa's Village, a semi-autobiographical novel about his familial heritage in the Oysterville community. Espy died at New York Hospital in Manhattan in 1999, and was interred at Oysterville Cemetery. Early lifeEspy was born in Olympia, Washington in 1910, the sixth of seven children, to Harry Albert Espy (1876–1959) and Helen Medora Espy ({{nee}} Richardson; 1878–1954).{{sfn|Espy|1992|p=258}} His father, a one-time Washington state senator, was of Scots-Irish descent.{{sfn|Espy|1992|p=37}} His mother was from San Francisco, the daughter of a local preacher.{{sfn|Espy|1992|pages=255–9}} Espy's eldest sister, Medora, a student at the Portland Academy in Portland, Oregon, died at age seventeen when Espy was six years old after sustaining head injuries while ice skating.{{sfn|Espy|1992|p=270}} His older brother, Harry Albert, also died of an undiagnosed stomach ailment in Portland at age three in 1905, prior to Espy's birth.{{sfn|Espy|1992|pages=269–70}} Espy also had an older sister, Suzita (1903–1932); older sister Mona (1904–1970); older brother Edwin (1908–1993); and younger brother Dale (1911–2009).{{sfn|Espy|1992|p-270}} He and his siblings were raised in the coastal village of Oysterville, Washington, which had been founded in 1854 by his grandfather, R. H. Espy, a settler who arrived in Oregon Territory via The Oregon Trail.{{sfn|Espy|1992|pages=117–120}} Espy graduated from the University of Redlands in 1930 with a B.A. after which he spent a year abroad, enrolling at the Sorbonne in Paris, planning to study philosophy.[2][3] He returned to the United States in 1932, working as a newspaper editor in California, later moving to New York City where he was eventually hired by Reader's Digest in 1941. Espy spent next sixteen years working for Reader's Digest in various positions, including as promotion director.[3] CareerEspy's writing career took off in the late 1960s; he eventually authored fifteen books on language, and his poetry and articles regularly appeared in Punch, Reader's Digest, The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, and The Journal of Recreational Linguistics.[2][4] Espy earned praise from contemporary critics such as Louis Untermeyer and John Chancellor.[7] Summarizing Espy's writing, critic Alistair Cooke wrote: {{quote|To Willard Espy the English language is what a football is to Joe Namath, a golf ball to Arnold Palmer, the male of the species to Zsa Zsa Gabor: a wonderful object to manipulate, to flog, to coax and have a barrel of fun with.[5]}}Later in life, Espy divided his time between Manhattan and his home in Oysterville, and wrote nationally bestselling books on local history, including Roads to Grandpa's Village (1977) and Skulduggery on Shoalwater Bay (1998).[2] Two of his books on wordplay, The Game of Words and An Almanac of Words at Play, were honored at the Governor's Writers Day Awards (now the Washington State Book Awards), [6] and the latter was a national bestseller.[7] He was also a contributing writer for The New Yorker[8] and other publications. DeathEspy died aged 88 at New York Hospital in Manhattan on February 20, 1999.[3][9] He is interred in a family plot in Oysterville Cemetery.[10] His second wife Louise, a native of New York, died in November 2011, and was interred beside him.[10] LegacyThe Espy Foundation was established in 1998; the non-profit foundation, based out of Espy's home in Oysterville, Washington, served as a retreat space for artists and writers in the Pacific Northwest.[11] In December 2010, the foundation officially closed.[11] Espy's light verse has been compared to that of Lewis Carroll, W. S. Gilbert, Ogden Nash and Cole Porter.[3] Bibliography
References1. ^{{cite book |isbn=978-3-11-018616-1 |last1=Nilsen |first1=Alleen |last2=Nilsen |first2=Don |editor-first=Victor |editor-last=Raskin |title=The Primer of Humor Research |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |date=November 6, 2008 |pages=243–280 |chapter=Literature and humor }} 2. ^1 2 {{cite book | title=The Best of An Almanac of Words at Play | author = Willard R. Espy | publisher=Merriam-Webster | year=1999}} 3. ^1 2 3 {{cite news |authorlink=Robert McG. Thomas, Jr. |last=Thomas |first=Robert McG., Jr. | title=Willard Espy, Who Delighted in Wordplay, Is Dead at 88 | newspaper=The New York Times |date=February 25, 1999 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/25/arts/willard-espy-who-delighted-in-wordplay-is-dead-at-88.html}} 4. ^{{cite journal |authorlink=A. Ross Eckler, Jr. |last1=Eckler |first1=A. Ross |year=2010 |title=Look back! |journal=Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics |volume=43 |issue=3 |pages=228–229 |url=http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/wordways/vol43/iss3/33/}} 5. ^1 {{cite book|title=The New York Times Saturday Review of Books and Art|volume=2|year=1976|p=94|publisher=Arno Press}} 6. ^{{cite web |url=http://www.sos.wa.gov/library/GovernorsWritersAwardsattheWashingtonStateLibrary19662000.aspx |title=Governor's Writers Day Awards at the Washington State Library, 1966–2000 |author= |date= |website=WA State Library |publisher=Washington Secretary of State |accessdate=November 23, 2014}} 7. ^{{cite journal|work=New York Magazine|p=159|date=November 14, 1983|title=The Wonderful World of Words|issn=0028-7369}} 8. ^Espy, Willard R. (1986) "All End-Letters Different in a Poem," The New Yorker (Word Ways): Vol. 19 : Iss. 3 , Article 3. 9. ^{{cite web|work=National Public Radio|title=Willard Espy Obituary|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1046126|accessdate=February 27, 2018}} 10. ^1 {{cite web|title=Live long and...|work=Sydney of Oysterville|date=June 10, 2012|url=http://sydneyofoysterville.com/category/willard-r-espy/page/3/|accessdate=February 25, 2018|deadurl=no|archiveurl=https://archive.is/tacVf|archivedate=February 27, 2018}} 11. ^1 {{cite web|work=Chinook Observer|url=http://www.chinookobserver.com/20101214/end-of-an-era-for-the-espy-foundation|title=End of an Era for the Espy Foundation|date=December 14, 2010|accessdate=February 27, 2018|author=Gable, Cate}} Works cited
External links{{commons}}
18 : American book editors|American humorists|American male novelists|American people of Scotch-Irish descent|American philologists|American male poets|1910 births|1999 deaths|Reader's Digest|The Atlantic (magazine) people|Punch (magazine) people|The Nation (U.S. magazine) people|Writers from Olympia, Washington|University of Redlands alumni|20th-century American poets|Members of the National Puzzlers' League|People from Pacific County, Washington|20th-century American novelists |
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