The middle-aged man on the flying trapeze

Subtitled "A Collection of Short Pieces, Mainly Humourous But with a Few Kind of Sad Ones Mixed in with Drawings by the Author".

Darker in tone than "My Life and Hard Times", "The Middle-Aged Man" draws on Thurber's troubled marriage for material. The humor is ridden with pathos, and yet is quite sharp.

This collection has 36 stories including: "The Gentleman is Cold," "Everything is Wild," "Mr. Preble Gets Rid of His Wife," "Hell Only Breaks Loose Once," "If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox," and "How to See a Bad Play." The London Times said, "There may be greater humorists writing in America today than James Thurber, but none with quite his individual touch and his flavor."