Cody, Edward Morrill

Edward Morrill Cody (April 10, 1901 - November 23, 1987), also known as Morrill Cody, was an American diplomat, author, illustrator, and editor. He was born in Lake Forrest, Illinois, the son of writer Alpheus Sherwin Cody (November 30, 1868 - April 4, 1959), and attended secondary school in France. After returning to the U.S. to attend Amherst College (graduating in 1921), he returned to France as a journalist and befriended many American writers of the 'Lost Generation' living in or passing through Paris in the 1920s. He is known to have written a short play in 1920 and contributed two satirical illustrations as magazine covers for Fairchild's International Magazine in 1928, but most of his work remained journalistic at this time. In the 1930s, he relocated to New York City and worked as a magazine editor while also writing his own pieces, which were published in Literary Digest, among other publications. In 1934, Cody wrote This Must be the Place: Memoirs of Montparnasse, recording the recollections of a famous British bartender Jimmy Charters of the Dingo American Bar and Restaurant in Paris, a favorite of the 'Lost Generation.' He continued to write and then joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1941, being posted in Latin America and Europe over the next two decades. He eventually served as deputy director of the United States Information Agency under Edward R. Murrow and then as the head of the Paris bureau of Radio Free Europe. He continued to write books about Paris in his later years, including one about his favorite restaurants in the city.