Runyon, Damon

Runyon, Damon (Alfred Damon Runyon), 1884–1946, American short story writer and journalist, b. Manhattan, Kans. He is best known for his humorous stories—written in a picturesque, slangy journalistic idiom (often referred to as Runyonese)—about New York City's Broadway and underworld characters. Collections of his works include Guys and Dolls (1931), Blue Plate Special (1934), Money from Home (1935), and Runyon à la Carte (1944). The musical Guys and Dolls (1950) was based on Runyon's stories.

Bibliography

See biographies by D. Runyon, Jr. (1954) and J. Breslin (1991).

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Runyon, (Alfred) Damon

(born Oct. 4, 1884, Manhattan, Kan., U.S.—died Dec. 10, 1946, New York, N.Y.) U.S. journalist and short-story writer. He served in the Spanish-American War as a teenager. After returning to the U.S. he wrote for newspapers in the West. In 1911 he moved to New York, where he developed a style focusing on the underside of city life and began to write stories. He is best known for Guys and Dolls (1931), a collection of stories about a racy section of Broadway written in the uniquely rendered slang that became his trademark and gave rise to the term Runyonesque; the book was adapted as a musical by Frank Loesser (1950).

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Runyon, (Alfred) Damon (1884–1946) journalist, author; born in Manhattan, Kans. He wrote a wide-ranging syndicated column, "On the Brighter Side," for the Hearst chain (1918–36), and penned colorful stories about hoodlums, racketeers, bookies, and other eccentric types encountered in New York's Times Square district. His stories, sold for large sums and collected in several books, inspired the 1950 Broadway musical Guys and Dolls.