It makes sense that Groucho, master of the wise crack, a man who kept company with S.J. Perelman and George S. Kaufman, should be a wonderful author in his own right, but you won't know how wonderful unless you read this book. Its editor, Robert S. Bader, has collected the funniest essays, columns and letters that Groucho composed during his long career. Writing with a wit and love of non-sequitur that influenced the young Woody Allen, Groucho also displays real warmth of character in these short pieces, an abiding love of family and of living.

Groucho Marx was a comic genius who conquered stage, film, radio and television. But he was also a gifted writer -- the author of a play, two screenplays, seven books, and over 199 articles and essays.

This collection presents for the first time the best of Groucho Marx's short comic pieces, written over a period of almost fifty years between 1925 and 1973 for the The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Saturday Evening Post, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and other newspapers and magazines.

Here is the one and only Groucho on his family, his days in vaudeville, his careeer, World War II, taxes, and other topics such as his love of a good cigar, his chronic insomnia, "Why Harpo Doesn't Talk," and "The Truth About Captain Spalding." The familar irreverence, word-play, and a dash of self-deprecation bring Groucho's wiscracking voice to life in these pages, firmly establishing him as one of the world's great humorists.

"A Groucho discovery. . .A valuable and very funny compendium." -- Leonard Maltin, Entertainment Tonight

"You can never get too much Groucho, and this book heartily feeds that appetite." --Dick Cavett -- Review

About the Author

Robert S. Bader, a Marx Brothers fanatic, has been collecting Groucho Marx's magazine and newspaper articles for over twenty years. He lives in New York City.