Abbott Joseph Liebling (October 18, 1904 – December 28, 1963) was an American journalist who was closely associated with The New Yorker from 1935 until his death. His New York Times obituary called him "a critic of the daily press, a chronicler of the prize ring, an epicure and a biographer of such diverse personages as Gov. Earl Long of Louisiana and Col. John R. Stingo." He was known for dubbing Chicago "The Second City" and for the aphorism "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one." Liebling's boxing book The Sweet Science was named the greatest sports book of all time by Sports Illustrated. Liebling was a connoisseur of French cuisine, a subject he wrote about in Between Meals: An Appetite For Paris. Pete Hamill, editor of a Library of America anthology of Liebling's writings, said "He was a gourmand of words, in addition to food... he retained his taste for 'low' culture too: boxers and corner men, conmen and cigar store owners, political hacks and hack operators. They're all celebrated in [his] pages."

Early life

Liebling was born into a well-off family on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where his father worked in New York's fur industry. His father was a Jewish immigrant from Austria and his mother, Anna Adelson Slone, came from a Jewish family in San Francisco. After early schooling in New York, Liebling was admitted to Dartmouth College in the fall of 1920. His primary activity during his undergraduate career was as a contributor to the Jack-O-Lantern, Dartmouth's nationally known humor magazine. He left Dartmouth without graduating, later claiming he was "thrown out for missing compulsory chapel attendance." He then enrolled in the School of Journalism at Columbia University.

Career

Early years

After finishing at Columbia, he began his career as a journalist at the Evening Bulletin of Providence, Rhode Island. He worked briefly in the sports department of The New York Times, from which he supposedly was fired for listing the name "Ignoto" (Italian for "unknown") as the referee in results of games.

In 1926, Liebling's father asked if he would like to suspend his career as a journalist to study in Paris for a year.

Liebling later wrote that the unsuitable proposed marriage was a fiction intended less to swindle his father than to cover his own pride at being the recipient of such generosity.

Thus in summer 1926, Liebling sailed to Europe where he studied French medieval literature at the Sorbonne in Paris. By his own admission On July 23, 1949, The New Yorker published an article by Liebling entitled "Spotlight on the Jury" in which he opened by stating "The trial of Alger Hiss, which produced some of the best and some of the worst newspaper copy of our time" and concluded "This sort of thing obviously and apparently lessens the chance of a fair trial next time. Perhaps the secrecy of the jury room, like that of the voting booth, should be protected by law."

Last years

In 1961, Liebling published The Earl of Louisiana, originally published as a series of articles in The New Yorker in which he covered the trials and tribulations of the governor of Louisiana, Earl K. Long, the younger brother of the Louisiana politician Huey Long.

Personal life

He married Ann Beatrice McGinn, a former movie theater ticket taker he had met while she was working in Providence, Rhode Island, on July 28, 1934. McGinn suffered from either manic depression or schizophrenia, which caused her to have hallucinations and go into fugue states. Her illness required many lengthy and expensive hospital stays and when she was out of the hospital, she was often heavily sedated. Both Liebling and McGinn committed infidelities during their marriage.

In 1946 he and his wife separated. They divorced on August 30, 1949, in Reno, Nevada. Two days later he married Lucille Spectorsky, the ex-wife of Auguste Comte Spectorsky, in Virginia City, Nevada.

On December 19, 1963, Liebling was hospitalized for bronchopneumonia. He died on December 28 at Mount Sinai Hospital, and was buried in the Green River Cemetery, East Hampton, New York.

  • In 2008, the Library of America published a volume of Liebling's World War II writings. The book includes the essays The Road Back to Paris, Mollie and Other War Pieces, Normandy Revisited, as well as his uncollected war journalism. In 2009, this was followed by the publication of The Sweet Science and Other Writings, edited by Pete Hamill.
  • The journalist and sportswriter W. C. Heinz called Liebling "the best essayist."
  • The Library of America selected Liebling's 1955 New Yorker story "The Case of the Scattered Dutchman" for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime writing, published in 2008.
  • Friend and fellow New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell inherited Liebling's book library after his death, and recalls Liebling's once having used bacon as a bookmark.
  • A later New Yorker writer, Anthony Lane, wrote favorably of Liebling, whose "delicately gluttonous writings on food keep wandering off (when he can tear himself away) into such equally pressing areas Paris, boxing and sex."
  • Anthony Bourdain named Between Meals as one of his favorite books, adding "He was an enthusiastic lover of food and wine, very knowledgeable but never a snob. It's the benchmark for great food writing."

His writing was often memorable, as was his eating, and he nicely combined the two passions in Between Meals (1962), of which the following extract gives a taste:

Bibliography

Books

  • Back Where I Came From (1938) Collection of pieces about New York
  • The Telephone Booth Indian (1942) Collection of New Yorker pieces
  • The Road Back to Paris (1944) Reporting on World War II, 1939–43
  • La République du silence (1945) / Republic of Silence (1947), editor, with Eugene Jay Sheffer. Collection of articles from the French underground press.
  • The Wayward Pressman (1947) First collection of press criticism
  • Mink and Red Herring (1949) Second collection of press criticism
  • Chicago: The Second City (1952) Portrait of Chicago
  • The Honest Rainmaker (1953) On the New York racing columnist Colonel John R. Stingo
  • The Sweet Science (1956) Collection of boxing pieces
  • Normandy Revisited (1958) Recollections of events in 1944 and revisiting in the 1950s
  • The Press (1961, revised 1964) Third collection of press criticism, including some pieces from The Wayward Pressman and Mink and Red Herring
  • The Earl of Louisiana (1961) On Earl Long and Louisiana politics
  • The Jollity Building (1962) Collection reprinting material from The Telephone Booth Indian and The Honest Rainmaker
  • Between Meals (1962) Memoir of living and eating in France
  • Mollie & Other War Pieces (1964) Reporting on World War II, 1943–44

;Later collections

  • Liebling Abroad (1981) Collects The Road Back to Paris, Mollie, Normandy Revisited, Between Meals
  • Liebling At Home (1982) Collects The Telephone Booth Indian, Chicago, The Honest Rainmaker, The Earl of Louisiana, The Jollity Building
  • A Neutral Corner (1990) Collection of post-The Sweet Science boxing pieces
  • Liebling at the New Yorker (1994) Uncollected New Yorker pieces
  • A Reporter At Large: Dateline – Pyramid Lake, Nevada (1999) Report on the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe Reservation, from 1955
  • Just Enough Liebling (2004) Selections from Liebling's whole career
  • World War II Writings (2009) Collects The Road Back to Paris, Mollie, uncollected war journalism, Normandy Revisited
  • The Sweet Science and Other Writings (2009) Collects The Sweet Science, The Earl of Louisiana, The Jollity Building, Between Meals, The Press
  • Liebling's War (2011) Reporting on World War II, including pieces from The Road Back to Paris, Mollie, Normandy Revisited

Essays and reporting

———————

;Notes

References

Further reading

  • "A.J. Liebling's Delectable Political Jambalaya", by Jonathan Yardley, January 20, 2004, The Washington Post
  • "The Church of Liebling: The uncritical worshippers of America's best press critic" at Slate
  • "Not quite enough A.J. Liebling" by Allen Barra, Salon, September 23, 2004