Today's New York Times

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 2/1/01 7:33:51 AM Eastern Standard Time,
fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU writes:

<< My use of JSTOR to find a 1952 occurrence of "There is no such thing as a
 free lunch" is mentioned, but it should be added that I had previously
 discovered a 1938 occurrence of this saying using noncomputerized methods. >>

Some useless footnotes:

Robert A. Heinlein in _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ (which appeared in a
magazine serial during the 1966-67 school year, probably starting in 1966, in
either _Worlds of IF_ or _Galaxy_ or both) used (endlessly) the abbreviation
TANSTAAFL for "There is no such thing as a  free lunch".  The characters in
the novel use "TANSTAAFL" in conversation with no character claiming it as
his invention, so there is no indication whether Heinlein used an existing
acronym or coined a new one.

The Mike Todd movie of "Around the World in Eighty Days" (released around
1955) shows a barroom scene which includes a "free lunch", complete with Red
Skelton playing the part of a freeloader.  I have no evidence whether bars in
the late 19th Century offered "free lunches".

      - Jim Landau