James Thurber (1894-1961) was one of the preeminent American humorists and cartoonists of the twentieth century. Most famous for his widely anthologized short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," he was a contributor to
The New Yorker for more than thirty years and wrote nearly forty books--collections of essays, short stories, fables, and children's stories, including
The 13 Clocks and the Caldecott Medal winner
Many Moons. Marc Simont (illustrations; 1915-2013) illustrated nearly a hundred books, among them James Thurber's
The 13 Clocks and a 1990 edition of Thurber's
Many Moons. He worked with such authors as Marjorie Weinman Sharmat (on the Nate the Great series) and Margaret Wise Brown and won both a Caldecott Honor and a Caldecott Medal for his illustrations of children's books.
Ransom Riggs (introduction) is the author of the multimillion-copy #1
New York Times bestseller
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children--now a major motion picture by Tim Burton--as well as its bestselling sequels
Hollow City and
Library of Souls and the companion volume
Tales of the Peculiar. He grew up in Florida and now lives in Los Angeles.