Ring Lardner and the Other : Oxford University Press : 9780195076004 : 0195076001 : 11 Feb 1993 : Newspaper columnist, sports writer, and author of short stories, Ring Lardner was one of the most popular personalities of the early twentieth century. Douglas Robinson combines careful psychological and cultural analysis to present an important reappraisal of this critically neglected American author. Robinson's study offers an exploration of Lardner's life and work. He presents a long, in-depth reading of a single short story, "Who Dealt?," as well as a briefer look at several others. He explores the contradictions of Lardner's patriarchal masculinity - how such a dour, sexist alcoholic who hated humor and bad grammar could have created such a rich body of minoritarian writing, steeped in the emergent voices of women and the lower middle class - and the social functions served by Lardner's writing in twentieth-century America. Ring Lardner and the Other is so titled because it is also an