Description

Ade (1866-1944) was an American writer, newspaper columnist and playwright. In 1890 he joined the Chicago Morning News (later the Chicago Record) where he wrote the column 'Stories of the Streets and of the Town' illustrating Chicago life and featuring a number of recurring characters. His well-known Fables in Slang also made their first appearance in this popular column, purveying not so much slang as the American colloquial vernacular. As a subtle moralist all too aware of the ironies of the modern world, Ade was perhaps the first modern American humorist, manifesting an ambivalence between the traditional rural virtues on which he had been raised and the craftiness he witnessed all around him in booming Chicago. This second collection of his fables to be published in book form appeared in 1900 with illustrations throughout by Clyde J. Newman.