Guy Wetmore Carryl (4
March 1873 – 1 April 1904) was an American humorist and poet.
Carryl was born in New York City, the
first-born of writer Charles Edward Carryl and Mary R. Wetmore. He had his
first article published in The New York Times when
he was 20 years old. In 1895, at the age of 22, Carryl graduated from Columbia University.
During his college years he had written plays for amateur performances,
including the very first Varsity Show. One of his professors was Harry Thurston Peck, who
was scandalized by Carryl's famous statement, "It takes two bodies to make
one seduction", which was somewhat risqué for those times. After graduation,
in 1896 he became a staff writer for Munsey's Magazine under Frank Munsey and he was later promoted to managing editor
of the magazine. Later he went to work for Harper's Magazine and
was sent to Paris. While in Paris he wrote for Life, Outing, Munsey's, and Collier's, as well as his own independent writings. Some
of Carryl's better-known works were his humorous poems that were parodies of Aesop's Fables, such as "The Sycophantic Fox and the Gullible Raven" and of Mother Goose nursery rhymes, such as "The Embarrassing Episode of Little Miss Muffet", poems
which are still popular today. He also wrote a number of humorous parodies
of Grimm's Fairy Tales, such
as "How Little Red Riding Hood Came To Be Eaten" and "How Fair
Cinderella Disposed of Her Shoe". His humorous poems usually ended with
a pun on the words used in the moral of the story.
You are only absurd when you get in the
curd,
But you’re rude when you get in the whey.
—from “The Embarrassing Episode of Little Miss Muffet”
Guy Carryl died in 1904 at age 31 at
Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. His death was thought to be a result of
illness contracted from exposure while fighting a fire at his house a month
earlier.