Morrill Cody (April 10, 1901 - November 23, 1987) was an American

diplomat A diplomat (from grc, δίπλωμα; romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution such as the United Nations or the European Union to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or internati ...

literary editor A literary editor is an editor in a newspaper, magazine or similar publication who deals with aspects concerning literature and books, especially reviews.

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

. Cody served with the

United States Foreign Service The United States Foreign Service is the primary personnel system used by the diplomatic service of the United States federal government, under the aegis of the United States Department of State. It consists of over 13,000 professionals carryi ...

for more than two decades and was a former deputy director of the

United States Information Agency The United States Information Agency (USIA), which operated from 1953 to 1999, was a United States agency devoted to "public diplomacy". In 1999, prior to the reorganization of intelligence agencies by President George W. Bush, President Bill C ...

from 1961 to 1963 under Edward R. Murrow. From 1965 to 1976 he managed the

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

bureau of Radio Free Europe. The author of several books, he edited the 1937 book ''This Must be the Place: Memoirs of Montparnasse'' by James "Jimmie" Charters↓*, the highly popular barman at the

Dingo Bar The Dingo American Bar and Restaurant at 10 rue Delambre in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris, France opened its doors in 1923. Most commonly called the Dingo Bar, it was one of the few drinking establishments at the time that was open all nigh ...

in the

Montparnasse Quarter Montparnasse () is an area in the south of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail. Montparnasse has be ...

of Paris during the ''

Années Folles The ''Années folles'' (, "crazy years" in French) was the decade of the 1920s in France. It was coined to describe the rich social, artistic, and cultural collaborations of the period. The same period is also referred to as the Roaring Twen ...

'' (the Crazy Years) in the 1920s. Morrill Cody was born in

Lake Forest, Illinois Lake Forest is a city located in Lake County, Illinois, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 19,367. The city is along the shore of Lake Michigan, and is a part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the North Shore. Lake Forest ...

and died in a nursing home in Wheaton, Maryland after a lengthy illness. He graduated from

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educatio ...

in 1921. ::*↑" ''This Must Be the Place; Memoirs of Montparnasse.''" ::Jimmy Charters served as barman at several Parisian establishments including the Dingo, the Falstaff, the Trois et As and the Jockey. Charters did not compose the memoir himself, but instead dictated impressions of and stories about his various clients to a stenographer hired by his collaborator Morrill Cody, an American journalist (and later cultural liaison) who also participated in Left Bank expatriate circles. According to Cody, Charters undertook the memoir at the urging of American artist

Hilaire Hiler Hilaire Harzberg Hiler (July 16, 1898 – January 19, 1966) was an American artist, psychologist, and color theoretician who worked in Europe and United States during the mid-20th century. At home and abroad, Hiler worked as a muralist, jazz mu ...

, who served as Charters' initial ghost writer before he (Hiler) persuaded Cody to take over. The resultant text first appeared as "''This Must Be the Place; Memoirs of Montparnasse by Jimmy the Barman (James Charters) ; edited by Morrill Cody ; with an introduction by Ernest Hemingway ; illustrated by Ivan Opffer and Hilaire Hiler,''" published in England by Herbert Joseph Ltd. in 1934. Lee Furman, Inc. brought out an American edition in 1937. Hugh D. Ford, who wrote the foreword for the 1989 Collier Books reprint, recounts that Hemingway agreed so long as he liked the contents. Hemingway looked over an early and rough version of the text with Cody and Charters at Shakespeare and Company while on his way from Key West to Africa in November 1933. Hemingway then mailed his introduction from Nairobi, Kenya in January 1934. :::Note, P.30, 'Writing Communities: Aesthetics, Politics, and Late Modernist Literary ...'
– Elspeth Egerton Healey, 2008

Works

*''Passing Stranger'' (1936) *''The Favorite Restaurants of an American in Paris'' (1966) *''The Women of Montparnasse'' (1984) (with Hugh Ford)

References

External Links

Morrill Cody (AC 1921) Papers
at the Amherst College Archives & Special Collections {{DEFAULTSORT:Cody, Morrill 1901 births 1987 deaths American book editors American diplomats 20th-century American memoirists American travel writers American male non-fiction writers Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty people American literary editors People from Lake Forest, Illinois 20th-century American male writers Amherst College alumni