John Kendrick Bangs

John Kendrick Bangs ( born May 27, 1862 in Yonkers, New York, † January 21, 1922 in Atlantic City, New Jersey) was an American author, humorist and satirist. He is one of the most famous American humorist of the late 19th century.

Bangs, son of a New York lawyer, studied from 1880 to 1883 at Columbia University, where he was editor of the literary magazine. In 1984 he went to the Life magazine; additional stations were 1888 Harper 's Magazine, Harper 's Bazaar and Harper's Young People. From 1899 to 1901 he was editor at Harper 's Weekly. In 1901 he left Harper & Brothers to the New Metropolitan magazine to act, then moved in 1904 to the puck, the first successful U.S. satirical magazine.

His works A House - Boat on the Styx and Pursuit of the House -Boat were triggering for classification of a subgenre of fantasy literature as Bangsian Fantasy. He also wrote political satire, as in 1907 Alice in Blunderland, An Iridescent Dream, a parody of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, in which he criticized taxation, capitalism, greed and corruption.

Bangs was married twice. With his first wife Agnes Hyde he had three sons. After Agnes 's death in 1903 he married Mary Gray. They moved in 1907 from Yonkers to Ogunquit in Maine, where Bangs 1922 died of stomach cancer. He was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Works (selection)

• Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica (1895 )
• A House - Boat on the Styx (1895 )
• Pursuit of the House -Boat (1897 )
• The Enchanted Type - Writer ( 1899)
• Alice in Blunderland, An Iridescent Dream ( 1907)