Clarence Day --Life With Father

Clarence Day authored a number of books in his time, but it was the 1935 publication of Life With Father that was his most significant and enduring. A staple in English Lit classes, the book is an autobiographical account of Day’s young life with his family, peppered with humorous anecdotes about his Wall Street broker father. Published in 1935, the book was later-- in 1939-- adapted as a Broadway play. On the heels of its closing, in 1947, Life With Father was released as a movie, co-starring a teenage Elizabeth Taylor. From 1953-1955, Life With Father was given new life, this time as a television show. Clarence Day did not live to see the influence his work would have on popular culture as he died the same year as the book’s publication. Yet, his earlier words seem prophetic now:  "The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall, nations perish, civilizations grow old and die out; and, after an era of darkness, new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again, and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men's hearts of the hearts, of men centuries dead."

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