Irvin S. Cobb Writer

• Gender: Male
• Citizenship: United States
• Born: Jun 23, 1876
• Died: Mar 11, 1944

Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb (June 23, 1876 - March 11, 1944) was an American author, humorist, and columnist who lived in New York and authored more than 60 books and 300 short stories.

Cobb was the second of four children born to Kentucky natives in Paducah, Kentucky. His grandfather Reuben Saunders, M.D., is credited with discovering in 1873 that hypodermic use of morphine-atropine halted cholera. Cobb was raised in Paducah, where the events and people of his childhood became the basis for much of his later works.

Cobb was educated in public and private elementary schools and then entered William A. Cade's Academy intending to pursue a law career. When he was 16, his grandfather died and his father became an alcoholic. Forced to quit school and find work, he began his writing career.

He started in journalism on the Paducah Daily News at age seventeen, and became the nation's youngest managing news editor at nineteen. He later worked at the Louisville Evening Post for a year and a half.

His anecdotal memoir "Exit Laughing," includes a firsthand account of the assassination of Kentucky Governor William Goebel in 1900 and the trials of his killers.