Biography
Born on 19 August 1902 in Rye, New York, Frederick Ogden Nash died in Baltimore, Maryland, on 19 May 1971. Tracing his lineage to General Francis Nash, for whom Nashville, Tennessee, was named, he spent his childhood moving from town to town because his father’s work kept the family on the move. Though his schooling had been thorough, money troubles compelled him to leave Harvard University in 1921; afterward he held an assortment of positions until he entered the publishing world in 1925. That same year saw the appearance of his debut children’s book, The Cricket Of Caradon, written with Joseph Alger.
His first comic poem, “Spring Comes To Murray Hill,” reached print in The New Yorker in 1930, and the magazine brought him onto its staff two years later. Across the decades that followed he issued nineteen collections of verse and earned recognition as a leading practitioner of light poetry. The volumes include Hard Lines, The Bad Parent’s Garden Of Verse, I’m A Stranger Here Myself, Good Intentions, Many Long Years Ago, Parents Keep Out, Elderly Poems For Young Readers, The Private Dining Room, You Can’t Get There From Here, The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t, Everyone But Thee And Me, Custard The Dragon, Marriage Lines: Notes Of A Student Husband, The Untold Adventures Of Santa Claus, There’s Always Another Windmill, Bed Riddance, and The Old Dog Barks Backwards, the last of these released the year following his death.
In 1943 Nash joined S.J. Perelman to supply book and lyrics for the musical One Touch Of Venus, whose score was composed by Kurt Weill. Among its numbers were “I’m A Stranger Here Myself,” “How Much I Love You,” “Foolish Heart,” “The Trouble With Women,” and the lasting “Speak Low.” The production opened at New York’s Imperial Theatre and completed 322 performances. Although he had supported himself solely through verse since the middle of the 1930s—an uncommon feat—he also broadcast on radio, delivered lectures on literature throughout the United States and Britain, and contributed material to television. Lifetime distinctions encompassed several honorary degrees along with election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), and the National Institute of Arts and Letters. In 2002 the United States Postal Service marked the centenary of his birth by issuing a 37¢ commemorative stamp bearing his likeness.
His first comic poem, “Spring Comes To Murray Hill,” reached print in The New Yorker in 1930, and the magazine brought him onto its staff two years later. Across the decades that followed he issued nineteen collections of verse and earned recognition as a leading practitioner of light poetry. The volumes include Hard Lines, The Bad Parent’s Garden Of Verse, I’m A Stranger Here Myself, Good Intentions, Many Long Years Ago, Parents Keep Out, Elderly Poems For Young Readers, The Private Dining Room, You Can’t Get There From Here, The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t, Everyone But Thee And Me, Custard The Dragon, Marriage Lines: Notes Of A Student Husband, The Untold Adventures Of Santa Claus, There’s Always Another Windmill, Bed Riddance, and The Old Dog Barks Backwards, the last of these released the year following his death.
In 1943 Nash joined S.J. Perelman to supply book and lyrics for the musical One Touch Of Venus, whose score was composed by Kurt Weill. Among its numbers were “I’m A Stranger Here Myself,” “How Much I Love You,” “Foolish Heart,” “The Trouble With Women,” and the lasting “Speak Low.” The production opened at New York’s Imperial Theatre and completed 322 performances. Although he had supported himself solely through verse since the middle of the 1930s—an uncommon feat—he also broadcast on radio, delivered lectures on literature throughout the United States and Britain, and contributed material to television. Lifetime distinctions encompassed several honorary degrees along with election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), and the National Institute of Arts and Letters. In 2002 the United States Postal Service marked the centenary of his birth by issuing a 37¢ commemorative stamp bearing his likeness.
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