Peter De Vries

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Peter De Vries (February 27, 1910 - September 28, 1993) was an American editor and novelist known for his satiric wit.

De Vries was born in Chicago, Illinois of Dutch immigrant parents. He was educated in Dutch Christian Reformed Church schools, graduating from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1931. He supported himself with a number of different jobs, including those of vending machine operator, toffee-apple salesman, radio actor in the 1930s, and as an editor for Poetry magazine from 1938 to 1944. He joined the staff of The New Yorker magazine at the insistence of James Thurber and worked there from 1944 to 1987, writing stories and touching up cartoon captions. He had four children with wife Katinka Loeser; Jon, Derek, Jan, and Emily, who died at the age of 10 of leukemia. This experience provided the inspiration for his 1961 work, The Blood of the Lamb. De Vries received an honorary degree in 1979 from Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA. He died September 28, 1993 in Norwalk, Connecticut.