author
Henry Irving Dodge
1861–1934
Best known for creating the luckless but lovable Skinner, this American writer turned everyday office worries into light, comic fiction. His stories were popular enough to inspire stage and film adaptations in the 1910s and 1920s.
1 Audiobook
Skinner's Dress Suit
by Henry Irving Dodge
About the author
Born in Kasoag, New York, on April 11, 1861, Henry Irving Dodge was an American writer remembered chiefly for his humorous fiction. He is most closely associated with Skinner, the earnest, often overextended office clerk at the center of Skinner's Dress Suit and later stories.
Dodge had a gift for building comedy out of ordinary ambitions, social pretensions, and money troubles, which helped make the Skinner stories widely known in the early twentieth century. His work also reached beyond the page: Skinner's Dress Suit and other writings were adapted for the stage and screen, showing how well his character-driven humor translated to popular entertainment.
He died in Manhattan on July 28, 1934. Today, he is mainly remembered as a lively chronicler of everyday American life, with a warm, amused eye for the small disasters and hopeful schemes of his characters.