THE DAMON RUNYON STORY

A loving recall which gives the quality of the man as well as his writings that kept him so long in public affection, this biography draws heavily from Runyon's own columns and stories to fill in the picture. A Kansas boy, who through the newspaper game, he was a reporter at 15, and via the Spanish-American war in which he saw action in Manila, took the chance to come to New York to publicize a utilities convention and fell in love with the city. He became the chronicler of its guys and dolls and made its main stem and side street characters familiar to the newspaper and magazine world. Columns, short stories, later made into moving pictures, homely verse -- these were his passports to a wide public. Here are his friends, the original material for his stories, the quirks of his personality, and his last years of cancer of the throat which did not keep him from the dawn patrol with Winchell, nor from being a local celebrity. Keyed to Runyon's readers, this should have its own popularity.