Rudolph Edgar Block (December 6, 1870 – April 29, 1940) was a
Jewish American
American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from diaspora Je ...
journalist, columnist, and author. Much of his writing was done under the pen name of Bruno Lessing.Rudolph Edgar Block ''fr.wikipedia.org''. Retrieved: January 27, 2014.
Biography
Rudolph Block began his career as a journalist in 1888. He worked first as a news reporter on ''The New York Sun'' and later joined The
New York World
The ''New York World'' was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers. It was a leading national voice of the Democratic Party. From 1883 to 1911 under publi ...
. In 1896 he became the editor of the comic supplements to the Hearst newspapers, a position he held for the next twenty-eight years. During his tenure he supplied text for
The Yellow Kid
The Yellow Kid (Mickey Dugan) is an American comic strip character that appeared from 1895 to 1898 in Joseph Pulitzer's ''New York World'', and later William Randolph Hearst's ''New York Journal''. Created and drawn by Richard F. Outcault in th ...
and helped to create such popular series as
Happy Hooligan
''Happy Hooligan'' is an American comic strip, the first major strip by the already celebrated cartoonist Frederick Burr Opper. It debuted with a Sunday strip on March 11, 1900 in the William Randolph Hearst newspapers, and was one of the first ...
and
The Katzenjammer Kids
''The Katzenjammer Kids'' is an American comic strip created by Rudolph Dirks in 1897 and later drawn by Harold Knerr for 35 years (1914 to 1949). As Bruno Lessing his short stories chronicled life in the
Jewish ghetto
In the Jewish diaspora, a Jewish quarter (also known as jewry, ''juiverie'', ''Judengasse'', Jewynstreet, Jewtown, or proto-ghetto) is the area of a city traditionally inhabited by Jews. Jewish quarters, like the Jewish ghettos in Europe, were ...
of
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. Between 1905 and 1909 many of these tales were published by ''Cosmopolitan'', which at that time was a literary magazine. During the years 1915 – 1916 he also wrote a number of screenplays depicting the
Jewish American
American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from diaspora Je ...
experience.
Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842 – ) was an American short story writer, journalist, poet, and American Civil War veteran. His book ''The Devil's Dictionary'' was named as one of "The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature" by t ...
, another frequent contributor to ''Cosmopolitan'', mentioned Block in his satirical work
The Devil's Dictionary
''The Devil's Dictionary'' is a satire, satirical dictionary written by American journalist Ambrose Bierce, consisting of common words followed by humorous and satirical definitions. The lexicon was written over three decades as a series of insta ...
, recounting the author's alleged encounter with a prominent critic. A short poem by Bierce, titled "Rudolph Block", had likewise no apparent connection to the man himself.
An avid traveler, Block wrote about his experiences in the daily newspaper column "Vagabondia", which was published from 1928 through 1939. Along the way he amassed a collection of 1,400 walking sticks, although he himself walked unaided. After his death, the collection of canes, each made from a unique type of wood, was donated to
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...