Thurber was born in Columbus, Ohio, to Charles L. Thurber and Mary Agnes (Mame) Fisher Thurber on December 8, 1894. Thurber had two brothers, William and Robert. Once, while playing a game of William Tell, his brother shot James in the eye with an arrow, and Thurber lost that eye. This injury would later cause him to become almost entirely blind. Unable in his childhood to partake in sports and other activities because of his injury, he elaborated a creative mind which he then used to express himself in writings.From 1913 to 1918, Thurber attended The Ohio State University, where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. He never graduated from the university because his poor eyesight prevented him from taking a mandatory ROTC course.
In 1995 he was posthumously awarded a degree. From 1918 to 1920, at the close of World War I, Thurber worked as a code clerk for the Department of State, first in Washington, D. C., and then at the Embassy of the United States, Paris, France. On returning to Columbus, he began his career as a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch from 1921 to 1924. During part of this time, he reviewed current books, films, and plays in a weekly column called "Credos and Curios," a title that later would be given to a posthumous collection of his work. Thurber also returned to Paris in this period, where he wrote for the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers. In 1925, Thurber moved to Greenwich Village in New York City, getting a job as a reporter for the New York Evening Post.
He joined the staff of The New Yorker in 1927 as an editor, with the help of E. B. White.Thurber was married twice. In 1922, Thurber married Althea Adams. The marriage was troubled and ended in divorce in May 1935. They had a daughter Rosemary together, and lived in Fairfield County, Connecticut.Thurber died in 1961, at the age of 66, due to complications from pneumonia, which followed upon a stroke suffered at his home.
His last words, aside from the repeated word "God," were "God bless. God damn," according to Helen Thurber. My Life and Hard Times is the 1933 autobiography of James Thurber. It is considered his greatest work as he relates in bewildered deadpan prose the eccentric goings on of his family and the town beyond (Columbus, Ohio).Characters include the maid who lives in constant fear of being hypnotised; a grandfather who believes that the American Civil War is still going on; a mother who fears electricity is leaking all over the house and Muggs, "The Dog That Bit People", an Airedale Terrier that had a penchant for biting certain people. including the author.The book was a best seller and also achieved high critical praise. Russell Baker writing in the New York Times said it was "possibly the shortest and most elegant autobiography ever".
Ogden Nash said it was "just about the best thing I ever read"', and Dorothy Parker said "Mad, I don't say. Genius I grant you.".