Ring Lardner had a short but success writing career in spite of his life of heavy drinking and partying. There is speculation about why he became an alcoholic and expressed such bitter views in his writing but no satisfactory answers.
Ring Lardner Life as A Child and Young Adult
Ringgold Wilmer Lardner was born in Niles, Michigan on March 6, 1955, the youngest child of Henry and Lena Phillips Lardner. His parents were wealthy and Ring was taught at home, first by his mother and then by a private tutor. He was active in sports, especially baseball and football, in spite of having a physical problem with one of his legs. He showed an early interest in music and theatricals and while attending Niles High School from 1987-1901, he sings in a quartet. When he graduated at age 16, Ring wrote the class poem, his first published work that appeared in the Niles Daily Star on June 14, 1901.
After graduation, Lardner went to Chicago where he worked as an office boy but returned to Niles and worked for the Michigan Central Railroad. In 1902, his father urged him to enroll in the Armour Institute in Chicago to study engineering however he failed all the courses and is forced to leave at the end of the spring semester. From 1903-1905, he lived in Niles once again and went to work for the Niles Gas Company as a bookkeeper, bill collector, and meter-reader. It was during this time that he became active in the Niles American minstrel group, acting and writing music and lyrics for a two-act musical comedy, Zanaibar, during April of 1903.
Ring Lardner’s Early Career
Lardner’s first job as a journalist was with the South Bend Times after which he went to work at the Chicago Tribune, eventually writing a column, “In the Wake of the News”. He also wrote a column, “Pullman Pastimes” and edited the St. Louis Sporting News and Boston American. Readers came to love his use of vernacular slang, replete with typos, grammatical errors, and run on sentences. Lardner wrote about every day events and topics, always with his unique blend of cynicism, sardonic wit, and warmth.
His short stories about Jack Keefe, a bush-league baseball player, were first published in the Saturday Evening Post and later collected under such titles as The Real Dope (1919) and Treat ‘Em Rough: Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer (1918) in which Keefe is serving in Germany during WWI.
Ring Lardner’s Marriage and Family
Lardner married Ellis Abbot in 1911 and they had four sons, all of whom became successful writers, including Ring Jr (1915-2000) who won an Academy Award for his screen writing on television series such as M*A*S*H and the Cincinnati Kid.
Lardner was a prolific author, writing everything from the Jack Keefe short stories to magazines and newspaper columns, other short stories that became collections of his works, and a how-to book about writing. In spite of poor health and his devastating alcoholism, he had the continuing productivity of the professional journalist. It is still a mystery why someone who had come from a charming, wealthy family, married the women he loved, and had four talented sons, drank excessively and and why his views were so bitter. He had a heart attack at age 48 and died on September 27, 1933.
Bibliography:
Lardner, Ring. Ring Around the Bases: The Complete Baseball Stories of Ring Lardner. SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2003
