Fanny Butcher (September 13, 1888-1987) was a long time writer and literary critic for the Chicago Tribune newspaper. Butcher graduated from Lewis Institute (now Illinois Institute of Technology) in 1908. She began at the Tribune in 1913 and held various positions including society editor, club editor, crime reporter, fashion editor, assistant women's editor, special correspondent, assistant music critic. In 1923 she became the literary editor and held the position for 40 years until her retirement in 1963. A cartoon by Helen E. Hokinson on the back cover of Fanny Butcher's autobiography Many Lives, One Love shows a bookstore clerk showing a book to an elderly lady. The clerk is saying, "Hugh Walpole liked it, Fanny Butcher liked it, Wm. Rose Benet liked it, and Mrs. Roosevelt liked it, but it *isn't* very good." (drawing copyright 1940 and 1968 by The New Yorker Magazine). This shows that Fanny Butcher was a household name among bookish Americans in 1940.[1][2]
[ [ Fanny Butcher (autobiography) Many Lives, One Love (New York, Harper and Row, 1972)] ]