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Guy Wetmore Carryl

Guy Wetmore Carryl (1873–1904)
Columbia College 1895
Poet and Humorist

"It takes two bodies to make one seduction".

Guy Wetmore Carryl challenged the status quo of literature at the end of the Gilded Age in the late nineteenth century. Born on March 4, 1873, in New York City, he was the first child of author Charles Edward Carryl (Davy and the Goblin) and Mary R. Wetmore. At 20 he published his first article in the New York Times. He attended Cutler School and at 22 he graduated from Columbia College. While in college he wrote plays for amateur performance. He was noted for his good looks, good manners, literary wit, and zestful enjoyment of life. His youthful epigram "It takes two bodies to make one seduction" was remembered because it scandalized his teacher, Harry Thurston Peck.

In 1896 after graduating, he joined the staff at Munsey's magazine, was promoted to managing editor, and went to Paris for Harper's, where he wrote articles for Life, Outing, Munsey's, and Collier's as well as his own works. His published works include Fables for the Frivolous (with Apologies to La Fontaine) in1898, Mother Goose for Grown-Ups in 1900, Grimm Tales Made Gay in 1902, The Lieutenant Governor in 1902, Zut and Other Parisians in 1903, The Transgression of Andrew Vane in 1904. After his death in 1904 these two works were published: Far From the Maddening Girls and The Garden of Years, both in 1904. He died at age 31 from the illness thought to have been contracted from exposure fighting a fire of his bungalow, "rheumatic grip and blood poisoning," and he died at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City.

Submitted by Susan Carryl Madaus, who is solely responsible for the content.


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