''Try and Stop Me'' (1944) is a best-selling

book A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, ...

written by American publisher and writer

Bennett Cerf Bennett Alfred Cerf (May 25, 1898 – August 27, 1971) was an American writer, publisher, and co-founder of the American publishing firm Random House. Cerf was also known for his own compilations of jokes and puns, for regular personal appearanc ...

and illustrated by artist Carl Rose. The first of a series of joke books compiled by Cerf, the founder of

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

publishers, ''Try and Stop Me'' sold over one million copies in the first two years of publication.

Overview

The book is mainly a compilation of anecdotes, urban legends, jokes, ghost stories, what Cerf calls " shaggy dog stories", and profiles of newsmakers. Celebrities profiled by Cerf include

Alexander Woollcott Alexander Humphreys Woollcott (January 19, 1887 – January 23, 1943) was an American drama critic for The New York Times and the New York Herald, critic and commentator for ''The New Yorker'' magazine, a member of the Algonquin Round Table, an ...

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh), and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris in 1903, and ...

, Robert Emmet Sherwood,

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

Herbert Bayard Swope Herbert Bayard Swope Sr. (; January 5, 1882 – June 20, 1958) was an American editor, journalist and intimate of the Algonquin Round Table. Swope spent most of his career at the ''New York World.'' He was the first and three-time recipient of t ...

Dorothy Thompson Dorothy Celene Thompson (July 9, 1893 – January 30, 1961) was an American journalist and radio broadcaster. She was the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany, in 1934, and was one of the few women news commentators broadc ...

Monty Woolley Edgar Montillion "Monty" Woolley (August 17, 1888May 6, 1963) was an American film and theater actor.Obituary '' Variety'', May 8, 1963, page 223. At the age of 50, he achieved a measure of stardom for his role in the 1939 stage play '' The Man ...

George Gershwin George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned jazz, popular music, popular and classical music. Among his best-known works are the songs "Swan ...

, and

Lucius Beebe Lucius Morris Beebe (December 9, 1902 – February 4, 1966) was an American writer, gourmand, photographer, railroad historian, journalist, and syndicated columnist. Early life and education Beebe was born in Wakefield, Massachusetts, to a prom ...

Reception

While reviewers called the book "a lot of stories some of which practically everybody has read or heard","Have You Heard This One?" ''The New York Times Book Review'', November 12, 1944. the book sold well, going into eleven editions with its first publisher,

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster LLC (, ) is an American publishing house owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts since 2023. It was founded in New York City in 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group US ...

, before being released in a condensed form by the magazines '' Reader's Scope'' and '' Omnibook Magazine''. A special edition for the armed services was published in 1945; later that same year, it was serialized in the English newspaper the ''London Evening Chronicle'' and published in Swedish by publisher A.B. Ljus Forlag. It was later published by

Pocket Books Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books. History Pocket Books produced the first Paperback#Mass market paperback, mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in the United States in early 1939 and ...

in numerous editions and was in print as late as the 1950s. In 1948, Cerf published a sequel called '' Shake Well Before Using''.

Trivia

A copy of this book can be seen on the bed headboard bookshelf behind

Lucille Ball Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an American actress, comedian, producer, and studio executive. She was recognized by ''Time (magazine), Time'' in 2020 as one of the most influential women of the 20th century for h ...

in ''

I Love Lucy ''I Love Lucy'' is an American sitcom that originally aired on CBS from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes spanning six seasons. The series starred Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz, along with Vivian ...

'' episode 14 of season 2, where she has pregnancy cravings and eats pistachio ice cream with hot fudge and

sardine Sardine and pilchard are common names for various species of small, oily forage fish in the herring suborder Clupeoidei. The term "sardine" was first used in English during the early 15th century; a somewhat dubious etymology says it com ...

s. It is visible when Ricky Ricardo/

Desi Arnaz Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III (March 2, 1917 – December 2, 1986), known as Desi Arnaz, was a Cuban-American actor, musician, producer, and bandleader. He played Ricky Ricardo on the American television sitcom ''I Love Lucy'', in whi ...

serves his TV wife Lucy Ricardo the concoction of the three incongruous ingredients to satisfy her craving. It's also shown on the console table behind the sofa in episode 18 of season 2 in which Lucy develops an Inferiority Complex.

References

Joke books 1944 books {{comedy-book-stub