Don Marquis

In 1909, he tied the nuptial knot with Reina Melcher, a freelance writer and novelist. They had a son, Robert and a daughter Barbara. Reina died on December 2, 1923.

In 1926, he married actress Marjorie Potts Vonnegut who passed away in her sleep on October 2, 1936.

He breathed his last after suffering three strokes which partly disabled his body.

Don Marquis was born and grew up in Walnut, Illinois, United States.

His brother David passed away at the age of twenty in the year 1892.

He attended Walnut High School from where he graduated in 1894. Thereafter he attended Knox Academy in 1896 but after three months, he left the institution.

He started his newspaper carer with setting type and writing columns for small-town weeklies. For a brief period, he worked as a reporter in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia.

From 1902 to 1907, he worked on the editorial board of the Atlanta Journal and contributed a number of editorials.

In 1907, he took a job with Joel Chandler Harris as an associate editor of the New Uncle Remu’s Magazine. He got nationwide recognition for his work in this magazine.

In 1909, he shifted to New York where he worked for several newspapers. In 1912, he served for “The Evening Sun”, a New York based newspaper. For the next eleven years, he edited a daily column “The Sun Dial”.

After leaving “The Evening Sun”, he joined “New York Tribune” which was later renamed as the “New York Herald Tribune”. He got recognition for his daily column “The Tower” published in this paper. Within a few months, the name of the column was changed to “The Lantern”.

In 1916, he introduced Archy, a fictional cockroach character whom he described as a free-verse poet in its previous life. Archy supposedly used to leave poems on his typewriter by jumping on the keys.

Beside Archy, he also introduced the character of Mehitabel, a fictional cat and Archy’s best friend. The other characters that he presented were Pete the Pup, Clarence the ghost and Warty Bliggins and an egomaniacal toad.