**James Thurber *(1894-1961) was one of the preeminent American humorists and cartoonists of the twentieth century. Most famous for his widely anthologized short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," he was a contributor to The New Yorker for more than thirty years and wrote nearly fort...

**James Thurber *(1894-1961) was one of the preeminent American humorists and cartoonists of the twentieth century. Most famous for his widely anthologized short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," he was a contributor to The New Yorker for more than thirty years and wrote nearly forty books--collections of essays, short stories, fables, and children's stories, including The 13 Clocks and the Caldecott Medal winner Many Moons.***Marc Simont *(illustrations; 1915-2013) illustrated nearly a hundred books, among them James Thurber's The 13 Clocks and a 1990 edition of Thurber's Many Moons.He worked with such authors as Marjorie Weinman Sharmat (on the Nate the Great series) and Margaret Wise Brown and won both a Caldecott Honor and a Caldecott Medal for his illustrations of children's books.Ransom Riggs(introduction) is the author of the multimillion-copy #1 New York Times bestseller Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children --now a major motion picture by Tim Burton--as well as its bestselling sequels Hollow City and Library of Souls and the companion volume * Tales of the Peculiar. He grew up in Florida and now lives in Los Angeles.