Ade, George

Ade, George, 1866–1944, American humorist and dramatist, b. Kentland, Ind., grad. Purdue Univ., 1887. His newspaper sketches and books attracted attention for their racy and slangy idiom and for the humor and shrewdness with which they delineated people of the Midwestern scene. He is best known for Fables in Slang (1899); other volumes include People You Knew (1903) and Hand-made Fables (1920). Ade also wrote several musical comedies and farcical plays, among them The County Chairman (1903) and The College Widow (1904).

Bibliography

See The America of George Ade (selected writings ed. by J. Shepherd, 1961); Letters of George Ade (ed. by T. Tobin, 1973); study by L. Coyle (1964).

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Ade, George (1866–1944) journalist, writer, playwright; born in Kentland, Ind. He was a Chicago newspaperman (1890–1900) whose collected columns, Fables in Slang (1899), became a classic of midwestern vernacular satire. He continued to publish more collections of his "fables," and between 1900–10 he wrote a dozen popular Broadway plays and musicals. Collections of his trademark fables, such as People You Know (1903) and Hand-Made Fables (1920), are the most durable of his voluminous writings. He lived in Indiana after 1904 but traveled widely.