No personage is too big, no nuance too small, no subject too far out for Groucho’s spontaneous, hilarious, and ferocious typewriter. He writes to comics, corporations, children, presidents, and even his daughter’s boyfriend. Here is Groucho swapping photos with T. S. Eliot (”I had no idea you were so handsome!”); advising his son on courting a rich dame (”Don’t come out bluntly and say, ’How much dough have you got?’ That wouldn’t be the Marxian way”); crisply declining membership in a Hollywood club (”I don’t care to belong to any social organization that will accept me as a member”); reacting with utmost composure when informed that he has been made into a verb by James Joyce (”There’s no reason why I shouldn’t appear in Finnegans Wake. I’m certainly as bewildered about life as Joyce was”); responding to a scandal sheet (”Gentleman: If you continue to publish slanderous pieces about me, I shall feel compelled to cancel my subscription”); describing himself to the Lunts (”I eat like a vulture. Unfortunately the resemblance doesn’t end there”); and much, much more. That mobile visage, that look of wild amazement, and that weaving cigar are wholly captured, bound but untamed, in The Groucho Letters.

As a member of the Marx Brothers, Julius (1895–1977), a.k.a. Groucho, enjoyed a sensational career on Broadway and in Hollywood with such comedy classics as Animal Crackers, Duck Soup, and A Night at the Opera. His solo career included work as a film actor, television game show emcee, and author of Groucho & Me, his autobiography.