Picture a young James Thurber renting rooms here in Columbus while a New Yorker cartoonist's imagination began to take shape. The organization is dedicated to promoting the literary arts by presenting quality literary programming, increasing awareness of literature as a significant art form, promoting excellence in writing, providing support for literary artists, and commemorating Thurber's literary and artistic achievements. The house is individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is also part of the Jefferson Avenue Historic District.
Thurber's family rented this Jefferson Avenue home while he was a student at The Ohio State University, and the family lived here until 1917. Thurber later wrote of his experience here in My Life and Hard Times. He claimed to have experienced a ghost in the house on November 17, 1915; that incident inspired his short story "The Night the Ghost Got In." Decades later, writer William O'Rourke lived here in 1984 and wrote his own version, "The Night the Ghost Didn't Get In," published in Poets...
Notice the rooms that shaped a comic imagination and the public mission that now fills them, and picture the Jefferson Avenue streetscape beyond the house.