After graduation in 1883 with a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in Political Science, Bangs entered Columbia Law School but left in 1884 to become Associate Editor of Life under Edward S. Martin.

During the period between 1901 and 1906 Bangs was known to have spent at least parts of his summers at the Profile House[3] in Franconia, New Hampshire.

He owned one of the 20 connected cottages adjacent to the large hotel, which he sold to Cornelius Newton Bliss in August 1906.

In 1918, he lectured for YMCA and allied troops on the battle front in France during World War I.

John Kendrick Bangs died from stomach cancer in 1922 at age fifty-nine, in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Illustrations in Coffee and Repartee, unsigned, and The Idiot, clearly signed "F. T. Richards", were not credited (both available online at HDL).

[5] Originally the Associated Shades is an exclusive men's club in Hades, whose members are the shades of famous people, including Adam and Baron Munchausen but primarily historical writers: Homer, Confucius, Shakespeare, president Walter Raleigh, Johnson and Boswell, and many others.