Willard Richardson Espy (December 11, 1910February 20, 1999) was an American editor, philologist, writer, poet, and local historian. Raised in the seaside village of Oysterville, Washington, Espy later studied at the University of Redlands in California before becoming an editor in New York City, as well as a contributor to Reader's Digest, The New Yorker, Punch, and other publications.
In the 1960s, he began publishing books on philology as well collections of poetry collections, and became the best-known collector of and commentator on word play of his time. In 1977, he published the national bestseller Oysterville: Roads to Grandpa's Village, a semi-autobiographical novel about his familial heritage in the Oysterville community. Espy died at New York Hospital in Manhattan in 1999, and was interred at Oysterville Cemetery.
Early life
Espy was born in Olympia, Washington in 1910, the sixth of seven children, to Harry Albert Espy (1876–1959) and Helen Medora Espy ( Richardson; 1878–1954). His father, a one-time Washington state senator, was of Scots-Irish descent. His mother was from San Francisco, the daughter of a local preacher.
He and his siblings were raised in the coastal village of Oysterville, Washington, which had been founded in 1854 by his grandfather, R. H. Espy, a settler who arrived in Oregon Territory via The Oregon Trail. Espy later said, "there wasn’t much of anything to do but milk cows and read," and that he had "plodded through the Bible twice by the time I was eleven and "gobbled enough books to graduate from high school at fourteen." Espy graduated from the University of Redlands in 1930 with a B.A. after which he spent a year abroad, enrolling at the Sorbonne in Paris, planning to study philosophy.
Career
Following his studies in Europe, Espy returned to the United States in 1932 and worked as a newspaper editor in California.
Espy moved to New York City, where he was hired by Reader's Digest in 1941. Espy spent the next sixteen years working for Reader's Digest in various positions, including as promotion director. Espy earned praise from contemporary critics such as Louis Untermeyer and John Chancellor.
In 1963, Espy founded Charter Publishers to sell small, pocket-sized books condensed to about 17,000 words and priced at 25 cents, from vending machines across the city. The New Yorker reported that after the company's first year it was selling 13 titles from 350 vending machines, and averaging 1500 books sold daily.
Books and later career
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Espy published books prolifically, and his works on wordplay include The Game of Words (1972) and the national bestseller An Almanac of Words at Play (1975), both of which were honored at the Governor's Writers Day Awards (now the Washington State Book Awards). His books include a lighthearted novel about a prolific but mysterious author, called The Life and Works of Mr. Anonymous (1977), an autobiography called Oysterville: Roads to Grandpa's Village (1977), the local Washington history texts Skulduggery on Shoalwater Bay (1998), and a pronunciation guide for local place names, Omak Me Yours Tonight (1973). In his seventies, Espy sported a wing-tip mustache and white hair resembling Santa Claus, and was described in a 1982 Oregonian article as "a jolly old elf in spite of himself" who "'ho-hos' quietly before a typewriter in his apartment on New York City's Beekman Place".
Personal life
thumb|right|upright=1|Espy's grave at Oysterville Cemetery
Espy had a son from his first marriage. With his second wife, Louise Manheim Espy, he had four daughters, including Freddy Plimpton (née Espy), who was married to the writer and The Paris Review editor George Plimpton from 1968 to 1988. He also had two stepchildren. He is buried in a family plot in Oysterville Cemetery. His wife Louise Espy, a native of New York, died in November 2011, and was buried beside him. It served as a retreat space for artists and writers in the Pacific Northwest. The foundation, in partnership with the University of Redlands, awarded an annual prize to emerging memoir writers. In December 2010, the foundation officially closed.