A new centennial edition of Lardner's classic novel.

 

 

First published in 1916, You Know Me Al has captivated readers for a century and counting. It is perhaps the greatest baseball book ever written, but (of course) it's about more than baseball. It's about human nature.
     This centennial edition will introduce a new generation of readers to Jack Keefe, a very green young pitcher trying to make good with the Chicago White Sox. Keefe's story is told through a series of semiliterate and unwittingly hilarious letters written to his friend Al back home in Bedford, Indiana. These letters describe the halting progress of Keefe's baseball career and love life, inevitably revealing more about him than he realizes. In the letters, Keefe often justifies his actions by falling back on the phrase "You know me Al."
     In the course of his adventures, Keefe crosses paths with a number of baseball immortals including Charles Comiskey, Ed Walsh, Eddie Collins, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, and many more.

     The contemporary critic H.L. Mencken called You Know Me Al 

"a contribution of genuine and permanent value to the national literature."

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ring Lardner (1885-1933) was one of the foremost journalists, humorists, and short-story writers of the 1910s and 1920s. He was an acknowledged influence on Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, among others. He also became an esteemed playwright, composer, and lyricist in his later years.   
     In J.D. Salinger's famous novel The Catcher in the Rye, the narrator Holden Caulfield says, "My favorite author is my brother D.B., and my next favorite is Ring Lardner."