George Jean Nathan (February 14, 1882 – April 8, 1958) was an
American drama critic and
editor.
Early life
Nathan was born in
Fort Wayne, Indiana. He graduated from
Cornell University in 1904, where he was a member of the
Quill and Dagger society, and an editor of The Cornell Daily Sun.
Drama critic career
Noted for the erudition and cynicism of his reviews, Nathan was an early champion of
Eugene O'Neill. Together with
H.L. Mencken, he co-edited the magazine
The Smart Set from 1914 and co-founded
The American Mercury in 1924. He was also a founder and an editor (1932–35) of the
American Spectator, and after 1943 he wrote a syndicated column for the
New York Journal-American. He also co-authored with Mencken (under the pseudonym of Owen Hatteras) the autobiographical
Pistols for Two.
Over the years, Nathan's criticisms were published in
Mr. George Jean Nathan Presents (1917),
The Critic and the Drama (1922),
The Testament of a Critic (1931),
Since Ibsen (1933),
Passing Judgments (1935),
The World of George Jean Nathan (1952), and
The Magic Mirror (1960). Nathan's philosophy of criticism is laid out in
Autobiography of an Attitude (1925).
Relationships and marriage
Though he published a paean to
The Bachelor Life in 1941, Nathan had a reputation as a "ladies man" -- and one not averse to dating within his field; indeed the character of Addison De Witt, the waspish theater critic who squires a starlet (played by a then-unknown
Marilyn Monroe) in the...
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