Joseph Mitchell Biography
Writer
Joseph Mitchell was on the staff of The New Yorker magazine for nearly 60 years, from 1938 until his death in 1996. He specialized in plainspoken essays about gypsies, oystermen, bartenders and other colorful New York characters. His best-known subject was Joe Gould, a Greenwich Village derelict who claimed to be writing a magnum opus titled "An Oral History of Our Times." (Mitchell first profiled Gould in the 1942 essay "Professor Sea Gull"; in 1964 he wrote a follow-up piece, "Joe Gould's Secret," revealing that Gould's book had been a sham.) Collections of Mitchell's essays include McSorley's Wonderful Saloon (1943), The Bottom of the Harbor (1960) and Up In the Old Hotel, a 1992 retrospective which renewed interest in Mitchell's work.Extra credit: After completing "Joe Gould's Secret" Mitchell suffered a legendary case of writer's block: he continued to go to his New Yorker office until his death, but never completed another article for the magazine... Actor Stanley Tucci played Mitchell in the 2000 movie Joe Gould's Secret, with actor Ian Holm as Gould.
Blog posts mentioning Joseph Mitchell:
Four Good Links
NC Writers: Joseph Mitchell
Nice quick biography from a page on North Carolina authors
Joseph Mitchell Obituary
Reprint of his 1996 Associated Press obit
Secrets and Lives
2000 article, compares Mitchell's essays to the film
The Old Man and the Seafood
2005 Village Voice piece on the Mitchell style
Vital Stats
Birth
Birthplace
Death
Best Known As
Author of "Joe Gould's Secret"
