Peter De Vries (1910–1993) was born and raised in Chicago. He studied at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and at Northwestern, supporting himself with a variety of jobs that ranged from toffee-apple salesman to editor for Poetry magazine. During World War II, he served as a captain in the US Marines and returned home in 1944 to begin writing for the New Yorker. He then began using his incredible wit to create works outside of the magazine, writing twenty-three novels and a play, as well as novellas, essays, short stories, and poetry. His most notable works include The Tunnel of Love (1954), The Blood of the Lamb (1961), Let Me Count the Ways (1965), Reuben, Reuben (1964), and Witch’s Milk (1968); some of these have been adapted into films and Broadway plays. Still infamous for his quips and puns, De Vries has been praised as the “funniest serious writer to be found on either side of the Atlantic.”