Home > Arts & Letters > The compleat letter writer

The compleat letter writer

Sometime last week, I’d thrown up a link to this brilliant letter Groucho Marx wrote when Warner Brothers hit him with a notice of copyright violation.

A more contemporary master is Australian humorist David Thorne [website] — I’ve been a fan since the time he responded to a bank notice about settling an overdrawn account by submitting the drawing of a spider. More recently, some unsuspecting bloke moved into an adjacent building and decided to have a housewarming party — and by the time David was done with him… never mind, read.

And now he’s topped his own standards, in this exchange with a landlord who didn’t know just what she was getting into when she sent him a reminder that he was not allowed to keep pets in his apartment. Statutory Warning: Don’t read at work, especially if you are the kind with a very loud laugh.

Categories: Arts & Letters Tags: ,
  1. August 10, 2009 at 5:30 PM | #1

    This is hilarious…

  2. Prahalad
    August 10, 2009 at 5:31 PM | #2

    Absolutely hilarious! And the statutory warning must be taken very seriously.

  3. August 10, 2009 at 5:42 PM | #3

    The philosophy of Groucho still holds true today

    • prempanicker
      August 10, 2009 at 5:54 PM | #4

      Yeah. And seemingly, his skill at taking the mickey out of overzealous folks :-)

  4. Budugu
    August 10, 2009 at 6:53 PM | #5

    Whoa…the jew sterotype/hatred in the Groucho Marx letter was a little too much for me to take. Imagine someone writing such letter in this day and age – the whole jewish lobby would’ve jumped down his throat.

  5. Tamil Indian
    August 11, 2009 at 12:33 AM | #6

    When it hit the gold fish email I couldnt control myself – Sorry didnt heed your warning. But I did forward it to the folks near me so that they dont think I had gone mad :-)

  6. pr3m
    June 1, 2010 at 5:01 PM | #7

    the last one was good, but i didn’t LOL.

  1. May 31, 2010 at 11:35 AM | #1

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