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Donald Robert Perry Marquis (/ˈmɑːrkwɪs/MAR-kwis; July 29, 1878 – December 29, 1937) was an Americanhumorist,journalist, and author. He was variously anovelist, poet, newspapercolumnist, andplaywright. He is remembered best for creating the charactersArchy and Mehitabel, supposed authors of humorous verse. During his lifetime he was equally famous for creating another fictitious character, "the Old Soak," who was the subject of two books, a hit Broadway play (1922–23), asilent film (1926) and a talkie (1937).
Marquis was born and grew up inWalnut, Illinois. His brother David died in 1892 at the age of 20; his father James died in 1897. After graduating from Walnut High School in 1894, he attended Knox Academy, a now-defunct preparatory program run byKnox College, in 1896, but left after three months
In 1909, Marquis married Reina Melcher, with whom he had a son, Robert (1915–1921) and a daughter, Barbara (1918–1931).
Reina died on December 2, 1923, and three years later Marquis married the actress Marjorie Potts Vonnegut, whose first husband, actorWalter Vonnegut, was a cousin ofKurt Vonnegut Jr., the bestselling author, playwright and satirist. Marjorie died in her sleep on October 25, 1936.
Marquis died of a stroke inNew York City, after suffering three other strokes that partly disabled him.
On August 23, 1943, the United States Navy christened aLiberty ship, theUSS Don Marquis (IX-215), in his memory.
From 1902 to 1907 Marquis served on the editorial board of theAtlantaJournal where he wrote many editorials during the heated gubernatorial election between his publisherHoke Smith and futurePulitzer Prize winner,Clark Howell (Smith was the victor).[1]
In 1912 he began work for theNew York Evening Sun, and edited for the next eleven years a daily column, "The Sun Dial". In 1922 he leftThe Evening Sun (shortened toThe Sun in 1920) for theNew York Tribune (renamed theNew York Herald Tribune in 1924), where his daily column, "The Tower" (later "The Lantern") was a great success. He regularly contributed columns and short stories to theSaturday Evening Post,Collier's andAmerican magazines and also appeared inHarper's,Scribner's,Golden Book, andCosmopolitan.
Marquis's best-known creation was Archy, a fictionalcockroach (developed as a character during 1916) who had been afree-verse poet in a previous life, and who supposedly left poems on Marquis's typewriter by jumping on the keys. Archy usually typed only lower-case letters, without punctuation, because he could not operate the shift key. His verses were a type of social satire, and were used by Marquis in his newspaper columns titled "archy and mehitabel"; mehitabel was an alley cat, occasional companion of archy and the subject of some of archy's verses. The archy and mehitabel pieces were illustrated by cartoonistGeorge Herriman, better known to posterity as the author of the newspaper comicKrazy Kat. Other characters developed by Marquis includedPete the Pup, Clarence the ghost, and an egomaniacal toad named Warty Bliggins.
Marquis was the author of about 35 books. He co-wrote (or contributed posthumously to) the filmsThe Sports Pages,Shinbone Alley,The Good Old Soak andSkippy. The 1926 filmThe Cruise of the Jasper B was supposedly based on his 1916 novel of the same name, although the plots have little in common.
