Don Marquis was an American author, comedian, and reporter who was born July 29, 1878, and died December 29, 1937. He wrote books, poems, newspaper columns, and plays, among other things. People remember him most for making up the figures Archy and Mehitabel, who were said to be writers of funny verse. Along with his other fictional character, "the Old Soak," he was also famous for writing two books about him and making a hit Broadway play (1922-23), a silent film (1926), and a talkie (1937). Marquis was on the editorial board of the Atlanta Journal from 1902 to 1907. While there, he wrote many articles during the heated election for governor between his publisher Hoke Smith and Clark Howell, who would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize. Beginning in 1912, he worked for the New York Evening Sun and was in charge of a daily piece called "The Sun Dial" for eleven years. He left The Evening Sun (which was renamed The Sun in 1920) for the New York Tribune (which was later called the New York Herald Tribune). There, his daily column, "The Tower" (later "The Lantern"), was a big hit. In addition to the Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, and American, he usually wrote columns and short stories for Harper's, Scribner's, Golden Book, and Cosmopolitan.
