Rudolph Edgar Block

Rudolph Edgar Block[1][2]
Born (1870-12-06)December 6, 1870
New York City
Died April 29, 1940(1940-04-29) (aged 69)
Tucson, Arizona
Occupation journalist, columnist, author
Spouse(s) Verda Block
Children Rudolph,[3] Albert

Rudolph Edgar Block (December 6, 1870 – April 29, 1940) was a Jewish American journalist, columnist, and author. Much of his writing was done under the pen name of Bruno Lessing.[4]

Biography

Rudolph Block began his career as a journalist in 1888. He worked first as a news reporter on The New York Sun and later joined the The New York World. In 1896 he became the editor of the comic supplements to the Hearst newspapers,[4] a position he held for the next twenty-eight years.[1] During his tenure he supplied text for The Yellow Kid[5] and helped to create such popular series as Happy Hooligan and The Katzenjammer Kids.[1] As Bruno Lessing his short stories chronicled life in the Jewish ghetto of New York City.[6] Between 1905 and 1909 many of these tales were published by Cosmopolitan, which at that time was a literary magazine.[7] During the years 1915 – 1916 he also wrote a number of screenplays depicting the Jewish American experience.[8]

Ambrose Bierce, another frequent contributor to Cosmopolitan,[9] mentioned Block in his satirical work The Devil's Dictionary, recounting the author's alleged encounter with a prominent critic.[10] A short poem by Bierce, titled "Rudolph Block", had likewise no apparent connection to the man himself.[11]

An avid traveler, Block wrote about his experiences in the daily newspaper column "Vagabondia", which was published from 1928 through 1939.[12][13] Along the way he amassed a collection of 1,400 walking sticks, although he himself walked unaided.[14] After his death, the collection of canes, each made from a unique type of wood, was donated to Yale University.[15]

Selected works

References

  1. 1 2 3 William J. Burling, Bruno Lessing, vol. 28 of Dictionary of Literary Biography, (Detroit: Gale Research Co. 1984), pp. 133–136.
  2. ↑ St. Petersburg Times May 2, 1940
  3. ↑ Bruno Lessing's Son Gets Post In Seattle jta.org. Retrieved: January 27, 2014.
  4. 1 2 Rudolph Edgar Block fr.wikipedia.org. Retrieved: January 27, 2014.
  5. ↑ Around the World With The Yellow Kid virginia.edu. Retrieved: January 28, 2014.
  6. ↑ The International Story by Ruth Spack, (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1994) p. 62.
  7. ↑ The Dream Of A New Social Order by Matthew Schneirov, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994) p. 242.
  8. ↑ Bruno Lessing imdb.com. Retrieved: January 27, 2014.
  9. ↑ Ambrose Bierce google.com. Retrieved: January 27, 2014.
  10. ↑ Definition of the word "story" pangyre.org. Retrieved: October 18, 2016.
  11. ↑ Shapes Of Clay, vol. 4 of The Collected Works Of Ambrose Bierce, (New York & Washington: Neale Pub. Co., 1910) p. 373.
  12. ↑ The New York American April 5, 1935
  13. ↑ The Milwaukee Sentinel December 21, 1939
  14. ↑ Catalogue Of A Private Collection Of Walking Sticks openlibrary.org. Retrieved: January 27, 2014.
  15. ↑ Rudolph Block's Collection: Canes Of Various Woods lumberjocks.com. Retrieved: January 27, 2014.
  16. ↑ American Jewish Fiction by Josh Lambert, (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2009) pp. 19–20.
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