a.j. liebling or Abbott Joseph Liebling was born into a wealthy family in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. His father worked in the fur industry, and he was a Jewish immigrant from Austria. His mother, Anna Adelson Slone, came from a Jewish family in San Francisco. After going to school in New York, Liebling started college at Dartmouth in 1920. He was known for contributing to the Jack-O-Lantern, which was a famous humor magazine at Dartmouth. But he didn’t finish college there because he said he was kicked out for not going to chapel when he had to. After leaving Dartmouth, he went to Columbia University’s School of Journalism to continue his education.

Career

After graduating from Columbia, he started working as a journalist at the Evening Bulletin in Providence, Rhode Island. He briefly worked in the sports department of The New York Times. It’s believed he lost the job because he made a joke by listing the referee’s name as “Ignoto,” which means “unknown” in Italian, in the game results.

In 1926, his father asked him if he wanted to take a break from his journalism career and go to Paris to study for a year.

 sensed my father’s generous intention and, fearing that he might change his mind, I told him that I didn’t feel I should go, since I was indeed thinking of getting married. “The girl is ten years older than I am,” I said, “and Mother might think she is kind of fast, because she is being kept by a cotton broker from Memphis, Tennessee, who only comes North once in a while. But you are a man of the world, and you understand that a woman can’t always help herself…” Within the week, I had a letter of credit on the Irving Trust for two thousand dollars, and a reservation on the old Caronia for late in the summer, when the off-season rates would be in effect

In the summer of 1926, A.J. liebling went to Europe, mainly to Paris. He said he was going to study French medieval literature, but he wasn’t very serious about it. Instead, he saw it as a chance to experience French life and enjoy French food. This trip made him love France and its people. He came back to Providence in 1927 to write for the Journal.

Later, he moved to New York and wanted to work for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, which was known as a paper for writers. To catch the attention of the people who could hire him, he went to great lengths. He even paid a person to walk around with signs saying, “Hire Joe Liebling.” But the right person didn’t see these signs. Eventually, he got a job at the World in 1930 and then at the World Telegram from 1931 to 1935.

New Yorker

In 1935, he began working at The New Yorker magazine. He wrote some of his most famous pieces in the late 1930s, which you can find in books like “Back Where I Came From” from 1938 and “The Telephone Booth Indian” from 1942. During World War II, he was a war reporter. He wrote stories from Africa, England, and France. In 1939, he traveled to Europe and stayed in Paris for a while. Then, in 1940, he came back to the United States. In 1941, he went to Britain. In 1942, he traveled to Algeria to report on the fighting there. He also took part in the D-Day landings in Normandy during the war.

After the war, A.J. liebling wrote about various topics for The New Yorker, including the press. In 1947, he published a book called “The Wayward Pressman,” which had his writings from The New Yorker and other places.

Hiss Case

And in the late 1940s, he spoke out against the House Un-American Activities Committee and became friends with Alger Hiss.

In 1949, he wrote a book called “Of Mink and Red Herring.” It had articles where he talked about New York newspapers and how they wrote about people like Elizabeth Bentley, and he didn’t like the way they did it. In July 1949, he wrote an article for the New Yorker about the trial of Alger Hiss. He thought that newspapers did some things well and some things poorly in covering the trial. He also proposed that the law should protect the secrecy of jury discussions, similar to how voting in a booth is private.

Last years

In 1961, he wrote a book called “The Earl of Louisiana,” based on articles he wrote for The New Yorker. It covered the challenges faced by Louisiana’s Governor Earl K. Long, the younger brother of politician Huey Long.

Everything I do is me. I don’t like taking ideas from people unless they’re the G.O.A.T.

A Boogie wit da Hoodie

Personal life and death

a.j. liebling married Ann Beatrice McGinn on July 28, 1934, whom he had met while she was working as a movie theater ticket taker in Providence, Rhode Island. Sadly, she had a mental illness, which made her see and hear things that weren’t there, and she had times when she couldn’t remember things. Her illness required her to stay in the hospital for a long time, and when she wasn’t in the hospital, she had to take powerful medications. Both a.j. liebling Liebling and McGinn had affairs outside of their marriage.

In 1946, he and his first wife split up, and they officially got divorced on August 30, 1949, in Reno, Nevada. Just two days after the divorce, he married Lucille Spectorsky in Virginia City, Nevada. Spectorsky was seen as a nice but not very clever woman from rural Kentucky. He and Spectorsky divorced in 1959, and he married author Jean Stafford in the same year.

On December 19, 1963, Liebling went to the hospital because he had bronchopneumonia. Sadly, he didn’t get better, and he died on December 28 at Mount Sinai Hospital. He was buried in the Green River Cemetery in East Hampton, New York.

Notable works

A.J. Liebling is known for several notable works, and some of his best works include:

1. The Sweet Science (1956): A book of essays about boxing, is thought of as one of Liebling’s best works. People really like it because it’s full of smart and vivid writing about the world of boxing.
2. Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris (1959): In this book, Liebling talks about how much he loves French food and his time in Paris. It’s considered a classic in food writing because of its great stories about food and the city.
3. The Earl of Louisiana (1961):
   This book looks at the life of Louisiana Governor Earl K. Long, both in politics and his personal life. It gives us a really interesting look into Southern politics.
4. The Telephone Booth Indian (1942): This book is a collection of essays where Liebling shares clever and funny thoughts on many different subjects like news, politics, and culture.
5. Back Where I Came From (1938): In this book, Liebling talks about his time in Europe in the late 1930s. He shares his own special way of looking at the things that were happening during that period.
6. The Road Back to Paris (1944): In this book, a.j. liebling writes about what he saw and lived through during World War II. He mixes funny stories with smart reporting to give us a special view of the war.
7. The New Yorker Essays: Liebling wrote for The New Yorker magazine on many topics, and some of his best writings are his columns where he criticized the press.

These are just a few of his notable works, and his writing is characterized by its wit, humor, and deep insights into various subjects.