Shepherd Mead

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Shepherd Mead, born Edward Mead, (April 26, 1914-August 15, 1994), was an American writer.

He is best known as the author of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which was adapted into a hit Broadway show and motion picture.

Mead's book How to Succeed... differs significantly from the stage musical and movie inspired by it. The original book has no plot; it is a satire of an instructional manual, very similar in form and subject matter to Stephen Potter's Gamesmanship. Mead's book was inspired by his corporate experiences; he joined the Benton & Bowles advertising agency in 1936 as a mail-room clerk, and worked his way up to a vice-presidency by the time he left in 1951 to pursue a writing career. The stage musical of How to Succeed..., written by Abe Burrows and Frank Loesser with minor input by others, satirises Mead's own career by depicting the rise of eager young J. Pierrepont Finch ... a window-washer who joins a huge corporation by starting in the mail room, and becomes chairman of the board a week later.

Mead, a native of St. Louis, graduated with an A.B. from Washington University in St. Louis in 1936. He wrote How to Succeed in 100 hours while on vacation on Cape Cod.

How to Succeed, published in 1952, satirized contemporary office life in the United States in the guise of a self-help book. Its subtitle was "The dastard's guide to fame and fortune."

The book was a best-seller, and in 1961 it was adapted into a musical by Frank Loesser, with book by Abe Burrows. The play starred Robert Morse as the young striver J. Pierrepont Finch and Rudy Vallee as the company president J.W. Biggley.

The play was a smash hit, with a Broadway run of 1417 performances between October 1961 and March 1965. It won eight Tony Awards and the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for best drama. It was adapted into a movie, also starring Morse and several from the Broadway cast, in 1967. It was successfully revived on Broadway in 1995, starring Matthew Broderick as Finch.

After his best-selling success, Mead moved to Great Britain. He went on to write 19 novels, including The Big Ball of Wax: A Story of Tomorrow's Happy World (1954) describing life in the future year 1993, and The Carefully Considered Rape of the World: A Novel about the Unspeakable (1965), in which all of Earth's fertile women are simultaneously impregnated by baboon-like extraterrestrials.

[edit] Quote

"Not even computers will replace committees, because committees buy computers."

--Shepherd Mead, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, June 18, 1964.

[edit] Works

Admen. (1958)
Big ball of wax; a story of tomorrow’s happy world, a novel. (1954)
Carefully considered rape of the world : a novel about the unspeakable. (1965)
"Dudley, there is no tomorrow!" "Then how about this afternoon?" A novel. (1963)
’ER; or, The brassbound beauty, the bearded bicyclist, and the gold-colored teen-age grandfather; a novel. (1969)
Four window girl; or, How to make more money than men; a novel. (1959)
Free the male man! (1972) ISBN 0671211234
How to get rich in TV without really trying. (1956)
How to get to the future before it gets to you. (1974)
How to live like a lord without really trying. (1964)
How to stay medium-young practically forever without really trying. (1971) ISBN 0671208659
How to succeed at business spying by trying; a novel about industrial espionage. (1968)
How to succeed in business without really trying. (1st Fireside edition) (1995) ISBN 0684800209
How to succeed in business without really trying; the dastard’s guide to fame and fortune. (1952)
How to succeed in tennis without really trying : the easy tennismanship way to do all the things no tennis pro can teach you. (1977) ISBN 0679507493
How to succeed with women without really trying; the dastard’s guide to the birds and bees. (1957)
Magnificent MacInnes. (1949)
Tessie, the hound of channel one. (1951)
Tennessee Williams: an intimate biography (with Dakin Williams) (1983) ISBN 0877954887