George S. (George Shepard) Chappell

Born in New London, Connecticut, in 1877, George Shepard Chappell trained first at Yale University, where he contributed to The Yale Record, and then studied architecture in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts. He built a career as an architect, but he also wrote journalism and humor, giving his work an unusual mix of polish and mischief.

Chappell wrote for Vanity Fair and published a long list of books in the 1910s, 1920s, and early 1930s. He is especially remembered for his comic travel spoofs under the pseudonym Walter E. Traprock, including The Cruise of the Kawa, My Northern Exposure, and Sarah of the Sahara. He also published lighter social satire such as Rollo in Society and collaborated with well-known figures including Dorothy Parker.

He died in Bantam, Connecticut, in 1946. Today he stands out as a writer who could be both cultured and very funny: an architect with a real feel for style, and a humorist who knew exactly how to parody fashionable taste.