Artemus Ward Research Articles

Using the Immigrant's Voice: Humor and Pathos in Nineteenth Century "Dutch" Dialect Texts

The nineteenth century, and particularly its second half, was a period in American literature in which enormous interest in linguistic variation was displayed. Writers experimented with and used just about every form of expression that fell into their hands. In a sense, they were recorders of huge linguistic variety that characterized America. Many of these experiments were disseminated in small, cheaply made paperback anthologies produced by publishing houses such as Beadle and Adams. Often subtitles of publications indicated scope of these little volumes, which typically included writings in Dutch, French, Yankee, Irish, Backwoods, Negro and other dialects (Beecher). All literary genres were represented in these compilations, but texts were usually short, longest hardly exceeding four pages of print. Anecdotes and short narratives stood beside poems, dramatic dialogues and similar pieces, many of them intended for recitation. It seems that entertainment value of these texts lay as much in their subject matter as in their linguistic form. A creative use of was apparently relished by writers and readers alike. People delighted in for its own sake: during much of 19th century, readers in United States found ... renderings of dialect delicious (Blair and McDavid xxiii), they enjoyed new coinages, comic shouts and mock pompous words. In a way, it looked like growing nation was surveying its linguistic diversity. To a certain extent, these games and experiments can be regarded as attempts at finding new forms and ways of expressing conditions of life in New World. It may also have been an attempt to challenge predominance of formalized styles of writing and recitation which had become a symbol of cultural achievement (Blair and Hill 276). Although writing in dialect has been a feature of American literature from its very beginning, period of Civil War holds a prominent place in perfection of dialect voice. Artemus Ward, Josh Billings, Petroleum V. Nasby and other humorists, generally subsumed under heading of Literary Comedians or Phunny Phellows, created a humor of verbal expression and relied extensively on the eccentricities of language (Pound 257). While many exhausted themselves in deliberate unlettered spellings, technique rehearsed by these humorists eventually paved way for climax of dialect writing in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1884. Apart from intention of wanting to create funny stories, urge to use dialect may also have come from a desire to approximate real speech of real people, wish to create a literature that depicted its objects more realistically. Local color writers, for example, used sound of real to endow regional portrayals with more realistic detail. Harriet Beecher Stowe in Oldtown Folks, George W. Cable in Old Creole Days, and Joel Chandler Harris in his Uncle Remus tales all used dialect to boost lifelikeness of their narratives. While these writers have been examined in context of growing literary tradition of United States, type of dialect writing that set out to imitate speech of immigrants has usually been excluded from scholarly scrutiny on basis of assumption that this form of expression was nothing but a stock dialect invented to denigrate foreigner. Customarily, products of this phenomenon have been brushed aside as low quality productions without merit. This attitude corresponds to opinion of nineteenth century literary critics and reviewers who, more often than not, slighted material that was presented in non-standard language. Based on their fixed notions of what literature and drama should be, they generally devalued literary creations of a host of foreign dialect writers. This was particularly obvious in reviews of plays that relied entirely on dialect. …

Review: Comic Relief: The Life and Laughter of Artemus Ward, 1834-1867, by John J. Pullen

Review: <i>Comic Relief: The Life and Laughter of Artemus Ward, 1834-1867</i>, by John J. Pullen

Hearn on Huck

Hearn on Huck David L. Greene (bio) The Annotated Huckleberry Finn: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. Edited, with an introduction, notes, and bibliography, by Michael Patrick Hearn. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1981. Clarkson Potter's series of annotated classics is deservedly well-known. It began with Martin Gardner's superb Annotated Alice and has continued primarily with children's books, although it also includes Thoreau's Walden, Stoker's Dracula (written for adults but read mostly by morbid adolescents), and even an Annotated Shakespeare. The strengths and weaknesses of these books grow out of a policy that has clearly guided each annotator: to provide notes on practically everything from the outrageously obscure to the painfully obvious. One cannot read these books simply for the text, unless he is able to ignore note numbers beside every column of text, dozens of added illustrations, and annotations often much longer than the passages they explain. But if he uses the books to elucidate obscure points or to gratify the antiquarian pleasures of scholarship, he will find them interesting and often valuable. Michael Hearn's Annotated Huckleberry Finn is one of the best of the series. Hearn's research into published material has been exhaustive; he has even found unreprinted newspaper interviews with Twain. His introduction, which covers Twain's life in outline and the history of the book in detail, is enlightening and judicious; it could have been improved only by a full discussion of the various interpretations of the book, and that would certainly have made the introduction disproportionately long. At only one point do I disagree with Hearn's introduction: on page 24 he says that contemporary reviewers who accepted "local color only reluctantly and only when written by James Russell Lowell found Twain's bad grammar and slang merely coarse and inelegant." If we take this statement literally, it says that those who tolerated dialect only in [End Page 179] Lowell (The Biglow Papers?) did not tolerate it in other authors, which is akin to saying, "Those who like this sort of thing will find much here to like." But if we read into it the implication that most critics did not like local color and the attempt to reproduce dialect, I must disagree, for during this period such writers as George Washington Cable, Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary E. Wilkins, and others used dialect with little critical complaint. Hearn is surely correct that reviewers objected to Twain's use of dialect in Huckleberry Finn, but probably this was because the entire book is in dialect, rather than just scattered conversations. As Hearn points out, Huck must have seemed to superficial readers something like the works of Artemus Ward and his successors and was damned for that reason; the condemnation of Twain's novel was not, however, part of a general rejection of dialect. The annotations are fascinating; there is little that Hearn does not clarify and there is evidence on practically every page of his extraordinary ability to discover obscure information. The publisher's policy of annotating everything has prevented the editor from developing a single coherent critical theory in his notes, but that is the fault of Potter, not Hearn; series policy has also forced the editor to annotate the obvious, such as a definition of "two bits" and an identification of King Solomon, and occasionally to include information that is interesting but does not help us to understand Twain: the note on "two bits" goes on to explain that this term originated in "the Spanish milled dollar of eight reals, or 'bits,'" an intriguing piece of information that focuses attention away from Twain's "bran-new Barlow knife worth two bits in any store," despite the praiseworthy additional note that tells us what a Barlow knife is. Hearn's notes on the Duke and the King are especially fine. He surveys the stories about the lost Dauphin and provides a full explanation of the implied obscenity of the King's performance in the "Thrilling Tragedy of THE KING'S CAMELOPARD or THE ROYAL NONESUCH!!!" Throughout the notes, the editor uses comments from Twain's correspondence and interviews. Unlike Hearn, I do not like Kemble's...

Ben Butler versus the Brahmins: Patronage and Politics in Early Gilded Age Massachusetts

N INETEENTH-CENTURY humorist Artemus Ward once quipped that the Union Army's hasty retreat from Bull Run was brought on by a rumor of three openings in the New York Custom House. In 1880, a Texan attending his party's national convention allegedly declared, What are we here for if not for the offices? Both stories are apocryphal but, nevertheless, credible as indicators of the centrality of patronage to early Gilded Age American politics.l The distribution of public jobs-especially those plums of regional or national significance-had ramifications that went well beyond the determination of who would hold a particular position. A cabinet or Supreme Court seat, for instance, conferred prestige and influence not only upon its incumbent but also upon the factional allies who had worked actively to promote his successful candidacy. Other placeholders, like urban postmasters and heads of custom houses, shared with their backers the more tangible benefits attached to controlling the employment rolls of their installations. When prize offices were at stake, therefore, the politics of patronage became a high-risk game that required shrewdness, skill, sophisticationand not infrequently a measure of subterfuge. The teams which formed or fractured under such circumstances could, and often did, affect the course of subsequent elections and other public business at state and even national levels. The machinations surrounding two intensely controversial nominations highlight how that game was played in and

Bloc Voting and The Freshman Justice Revisited

Previous articleNext article No AccessResearch NotesBloc Voting and The Freshman Justice RevisitedEdward V. Heck, and Melinda Gann HallEdward V. Heck Search for more articles by this author , and Melinda Gann Hall Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Politics Volume 43, Number 3Aug., 1981 Sponsored by the Southern Political Science Association Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2130641 Views: 7Total views on this site Citations: 27Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1981 Southern Political Science AssociationPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Madelyn Fife, Greg Goelzhauser, Stephen T. Loertscher Selecting Chief Justices by Peer Vote, State Politics & Policy Quarterly 21, no.22 (Jun 2021): 165–194.https://doi.org/10.1177/1532440020945285Rachael Houston, Siyu Li, Timothy R. Johnson Learning to Speak Up: Acclimation Effects and Supreme Court Oral Argument, Justice System Journal 42, no.22 (Feb 2021): 115–129.https://doi.org/10.1080/0098261X.2021.1881668Elisha Carol Savchak, Jennifer Barnes Bowie A Bottom-Up Account of State Supreme Court Opinion Writing, Justice System Journal 37, no.22 (Jul 2015): 94–114.https://doi.org/10.1080/0098261X.2015.1012571Christopher E. Smith, Madhavi M. McCall, Michael A. McCall The Roberts Court and Criminal Justice: An Empirical Assessment, American Journal of Criminal Justice 40, no.22 (Aug 2014): 416–440.https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-014-9271-5Hemant Sharma, Colin Glennon A Case for Supreme Court Term Limits? The Changing Ideological Relationship between Appointing Presidents and Supreme Court Justices, Politics & Policy 41, no.22 (Apr 2013): 267–297.https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12008Ryan J. Owens, Justin P. Wedeking Justices and Legal Clarity: Analyzing the Complexity of U.S. Supreme Court Opinions, Law & Society Review 45, no.44 (Dec 2011): 1027–1061.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5893.2011.00464.xDrew Noble Lanier Acclimation Effects and the Chief Justice: The Influence of Tenure and Role on the Decisional Behavior of the Court’s Leader, 1888-2007, American Politics Research 39, no.44 (Jul 2011): 682–723.https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X11401813Drew Lanier Acclimation Effects and the Chief Justice: The Influence of Tenure on the Decisional Behavior of the Court’s Leader, 1888-2007, SSRN Electronic Journal (Jan 2011).https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1846631Hemant Sharma, Colin Glennon Ideological Congruity between Appointing Presidents and Supreme Court Justices, 1937-2008, SSRN Electronic Journal (Jan 2011).https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1852678Ryan J. Owens, Justin Wedeking Justices and Legal Clarity: Analyzing the Complexity of Supreme Court Opinions, SSRN Electronic Journal (Jan 2010).https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1695775Banks Miller, Brett Curry Expertise, Experience, and Ideology on Specialized Courts: The Case of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Law & Society Review 43, no.44 (Dec 2009): 839–864.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5893.2009.00390.xPaul M. CollinsJr. The Consistency of Judicial Choice, The Journal of Politics 70, no.33 (Jul 2015): 861–873.https://doi.org/10.1017/S002238160808081XErin B. Kaheny, Susan Brodie Haire, Sara C. Benesh Change over Tenure: Voting, Variance, and Decision Making on the U.S. Courts of Appeals, American Journal of Political Science 52, no.33 (Jul 2008): 490–503.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2008.00325.xPamela C. Corley, Artemus Ward, Amy Steigerwalt Deciding to Agree: Explaining Consensual Behavior on the United States Supreme Court, SSRN Electronic Journal (Jan 2008).https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1120522Mark S. Hurwitz, Oseph V. Stefko Acclimation and Attitudes: “Newcomer” Justices and Precedent Conformance on the Supreme Court, Political Research Quarterly 57, no.11 (Mar 2004): 121–129.https://doi.org/10.1177/106591290405700110Virginia A. Hettinger, Stefanie A. Lindquist, Wendy L. Martinek Acclimation Effects and Separate Opinion Writing in the U.S. Courts of Appeals*, Social Science Quarterly 84, no.44 (Dec 2003): 792–810.https://doi.org/10.1046/j.0038-4941.2003.08404009.xC. L. Ostberg, Matthew E. Wetstein, Craig R. Ducat Acclimation Effects on the Supreme Court of Canada: A Cross-Cultural Examination of Judicial Folklore *, Social Science Quarterly 84, no.33 (Aug 2003): 704–722.https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-6237.8403013Christopher E. Smith The Rehnquist Court and Criminal Justice, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 19, no.22 (Jul 2016): 161–181.https://doi.org/10.1177/1043986203251607Virginia A. Hettinger, Stefanie A. Lindquist, Wendy L. Martinek Separate Opinion Writing On The United States Courts Of Appeals, American Politics Research 31, no.33 (Jul 2016): 215–250.https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X03251196Saul Brenner, Timothy M. Hagle Opinion writing and acclimation effect, Political Behavior 18, no.33 (Sep 1996): 235–261.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01498601Robert L. Dudley The Freshman Effect and Voting Alignments, American Politics Quarterly 21, no.33 (Nov 2016): 360–367.https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X9302100308Timothy M. Hagle A NEW TEST FOR THE FRESHMAN EFFECT, Southeastern Political Review 21, no.22 (Nov 2008): 289–308.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.1993.tb00364.xTerry Bowen, John M. Scheb Reassessing the “freshman effect”: The voting bloc alignment of new justices on the United States Supreme Court, 1921–90, Political Behavior 15, no.11 (Mar 1993): 1–14.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993413Paula C. Arledge, Edward V. Heck A Freshman Justice Confronts the Constitution: Justice O'Connor and the First Amendment, Western Political Quarterly 45, no.33 (Sep 2016): 761–772.https://doi.org/10.1177/106591299204500311David W. Allen Voting Blocs and the Freshman Justice On State Supreme Courts, Western Political Quarterly 44, no.33 (Sep 2016): 727–747.https://doi.org/10.1177/106591299104400313T. M. Hagle, H. J. Spaeth Voting Fluidity and the Attitudinal Model of Supreme Court Decision Making, Political Research Quarterly 44, no.11 (Mar 1991): 119–128.https://doi.org/10.1177/106591299104400107 Saul Brenner Another Look at Freshman Indecisiveness on the United States Supreme Court, Polity 16, no.22 (Nov 2016): 320–328.https://doi.org/10.2307/3234610

“The Babes in the Wood”: Artemus Ward's “Double Health” to Mark Twain

In his legendary lecture “The Babes in the Wood” (1863–64), Artemus Ward wanted to “go in for fun,” and he artfully structured the talk to exemplify his credo: “We better stay in the sunshine while we may, inasmuch as we know the shadows will come all too soon.” Mark Twain heard Ward speak in Virginia City and later wrote that “The Babes” was “the funniest thing I ever listened to.” This article reproduces a reasonably accurate speaking text of “The Babes” and considers it in relation to Mark Twain’s theory and practice of lecturing and to his early written humor. Its comedy offered Mark Twain, among other things, a demonstration of (1) complex rhetorical strategies and (2) a sophisticated burlesque of the serious lyceum lecture. To clarify its burlesque dimension, “The Babes” is then compared to Emerson’s lecture “The Law of Success” (which Ward had heard and reported).

The Widower Narrator in Nathaniel Ward's The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America

NATHANIEL WARD'S The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America (1647) long been recognized as a unique work in the literature of Puritan New England. Of interest not only historically for its adamant attack on religious toleration, Ward's book is also notable for its unexpected concision, style, satire, and sheer exuberance of language. It been called a quaint little volume and the pleasantest [book] ... ever written by a Puritan;' and Carl Holliday remarked: beneath all his mistakes and natural failings we may frequently perceive that same plain, homely and earthy philosophy, that assumed yet shrewd simplicity, which have made us smile with Franklin and Josh Billings and Artemus Ward.2 However, with the exception of Robert Arner's excellent recent study, very little specific attention been given to Ward's techniques in The Simple Cobler.3 Not only the question of the author's artistic achievement been generally evaded, but even his more difficult, sometimes obscure puns remain unannotated. Truly Ward's book has scarcely received the careful study that its vocabulary deserves.4 It is not surprising that the narrator of Ward's polemic should have also escaped careful scrutiny. To some extent most

Artemus Ward and Mark Twain's "Jumping Frog"

Artemus Ward and Mark Twain's "Jumping Frog"

Artemus Ward and Mark Twain's "Jumping Frog"

Research Article| December 01 1973 Artemus Ward and Mark Twain's "Jumping Frog" Paul C. Rodgers,, Jr. Paul C. Rodgers,, Jr. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Nineteenth-Century Fiction (1973) 28 (3): 273–286. https://doi.org/10.2307/2933000 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Paul C. Rodgers,; Artemus Ward and Mark Twain's "Jumping Frog". Nineteenth-Century Fiction 1 December 1973; 28 (3): 273–286. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/2933000 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentNineteenth-Century Literature Search This content is only available via PDF. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

The Second Rebellion: The Story of the New York City Draft Riots of 1863 (review)

70CIVIL WAR HISTORY gives us the "Bluff Ben" of hoary legend, but there is too much, for my taste, of his well-known jousts with Lincoln and McClellan, to say nothing of other figures, and too little of Wade. (Strangely, there is no reference to the biography of Wade by Hans Trefousse published five years ago.) Was Vallandigham the personification of the Old Northwest copperhead? Many have thought so. But Frank Klement informs us that he was more moderate than Samuel Medary, editor of the Columbus Crisis; and despite the notoriety earned from his spectacular arrest, trial, and exüe to the South, what he really favored was a cease-fire and a restoration of the old Union, quixotic but hardly treasonable. All of which teUs us how bereft of real leaders the wartime Democratic party was, and what it might otherwise have been had Douglas lived. For Ohio Democrats to have nominated Vallandigham for governor in 1863, and for national Democrats to have nominated McClellan for President in 1864, were either blunders of the first magnitude or indications of such a vacuum. The politican-general is represented by James A. Garfield whom AUan Peskin presents initially as a Christian pacifist but whom the war soon converted into an admirer of Frederick the Great, critic of West Point generals, and advocate of the idea that massive bloodletting alone could destroy the rebellion. Of the two newsmen included (Murat Halstead and Whitelaw Reid), the treatment by Robert H. Jones of Reid is much superior. Even so, I would have preferred more of Reid's observations on wartime politics and fewer on battles and strategy. There are useful assessments of the contributions of a Cincinnati manufacturer, Mües Greenwood, and the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Ohio, Charles P. McIlvaine , by Carl M. Becker and James B. Bell respectively. A droll piece is the concluding essay on two weU-known humorists, Artemus Ward and Petroleum Nasby, by Harvey Wish. Kenneth B. Shovf.r University of Texas at El Paso The Second. Rebellion: The Story of the New York City Draft Riots of 1863. By James McCague. (New York: Dial Press, 1968. Pp. xii, 210. $5.95.) Ignored by practicaUy everybody for one hundred years, the July, 1863 New York City draft riots have gained a new significance in the riot-torn 1960's. We find some solace today in learning that things were not exactly peachy back then neither. However, as the tragedy of July, 1863 is told and retold it generally comes out about the same. The principal sources are the contemporary newspapers, so it is doubtful that we wül ever learn much more than we now know about the riots, the leaders, the strategy, or some of the shadowy figures who flit on and off the stage. In this latest account, James McCague, a novelist and historian, has gone through the newspapers and scattered primary and secondary materials. He has written a good narrative of the riots, probably as good as any extant, with several chapters of background on the gangs of New York and an epüogue on post-riot developments . Still there is not much terribly new here, although use of the Charles Loring Chapín memoir does supply some depth missing in other versions. But this is hardly a scholarly work. There is no documentation, and the bibliography omits a number of volumes which bear on the riots. One also finds a disturbing looseness of language. For example, it is unlikely that the Enrolment Act of 1863 was "rammed through a complaisant Congress on the pretext of wartime urgency and handed to the public as a fait accompli." ( 17 ) Nor is it accurate to say that "the draft was not destined to be much of a success from any sensible point of view." (165) Over one million men volunteered under the stimulus of the draft, which makes some sense. McCague also teUs us that the War Department "asked no help from the local authorities" on the eve of the draft, suggesting that had it done BOOK REVIEWS71 so the trouble might have been averted. ActuaUy the Provost Marshal General, James B. Fry, went out of his way...

Artemus Ward, his Book

Artemus Ward, his Book

Betsey Jane Ward, Hur Book of Goaks.

For reasons which I find it hard to explain or justify to myself, I worked my way through this book hoping that I would find Artemus Ward somewhere in its hidden parts. He was not there. It turned out to be a lifeless, spiritless effort written by I know not what hack who must have had a strong feeling that if one simply used the spelling, the format, and the same kind of illustrations that had appeared in the earlier authentic Artemus Ward books that would be enough. I have not been able to find out anything more about the book than its alleged authorship by the widow of Artemus. No doubt some enterprising publisher was responsible for perpetrating this travesty after Charles F. Brown's death. It is conceivable that Brown might have turned it outshortly before he died, but I prefer to think that it is a spurious effort

Legend, Myth, and Symbol in Frederick Manfred’sLord Grizzly

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsJames C. AustinJAMES C. AUSTIN, assistant professor of English at Southern Illinois University, is the author of Fields of the Atlantic Monthly, Letters to an Editor (1953), and Artemus Ward. His musical drama about the Dakota Territory was produced during the Territorial Centennial year.

Artemus Ward—His Book

Recently I came across a small windfall, two Artemus Ward books published in the 1860's. Artemus Ward was the pseudonym of Charles Farrar Browne, but I think no one would identify him by anything other than his assumed name. According to contemporary reports a major part of the fun Artemus Ward created and exploited was emphasized by his absolutely deadpan expression as he gave his hilarious lectures. Literally they had the audience rolling in the aisles. He had the virtues and limitations of dialect. My first reaction upon reading his words consecutively in a book, rather than in occasional bits as I had done, was to notice how very closely he resembled Will Rogers. Whether this is coincidence or design I do not know. Will Rogers' daily squibbs in the newspapers, gently lampooning society and the world, were a seemingly kind but sometimes sharper needling, probably more effective than the

The Needlers: Our Journalistic Satirists

In this essay on the role of journalistic lampooners who used the lever of humor and satire to budge public opinion, the authors concentrate on three writers of the Civil War and postwar period: Artemus Ward, Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby and Orpheus C. Kerr (pronounced “Orfice Seeker”).

Satires of American Realism, 1880-1900

THE CONNECTION between American humor and the realistic movement has been well established, as the introductory essays of almost any anthology of American literature will show. The association is made partly through the career of Mark Twain. Despite its traditional exaggeration, the Southwest school, beginning with A. B. Longstreet's Georgia Scenes (I835), demonstrated certain realistic traits, a fact that has been pointed out many times.' Moreover the same techniques used by the humorists were hallmarks of the later realism: characters drawn in local environment; subjects taken from daily life; natural speech used in conversation. But it would be erroneous to assume a strong connection between most humorists of the latter part of the nineteenth century and certain realists, simply because the realistic movement had been influenced somewhat by the frontier humorists. The frontier humorists had been concerned both with creating amusing experiences and with depicting eccentric characters in their native environments. But the writers who followed them after the Civil War were split into two groups.2 Writing about personalities became the job of the local colorists, while a group of professional humorists, called by Walter Blair literary comedians, took over the amusement concession. This group, beginning with Artemus Ward, sold words rather than local character, and achieved laughter with devices such as phonetic spelling. These humorists, concerned as they were with words, gave much effort to burlesque and parody, and it was in this stead that they made their principal contribution to the realistic movement. Through their burlesques they satirized the sentimental themes and pretentious diction of romantic and historic fiction.3

Mark Twain's "Artemus Ward" Lecture on the Tour of 1871-1872

IN a number of ways the lecture tour of 1871-1872 was one of the most difficult of Mark Twain's career. In the sixmonths period preceding the opening lecture in mid-October of 1871,1 Mark Twain had sold his interest in the Buffalo Express at a considerable loss2 and had made the decision to establish a home at Hartford, Connecticut. His wife was so ill and exhausted from a series of tragic occurrences that the removal to Hartford was not accomplished till early October. Certainly Twain did not look forward to the tour with any degree of pleasure. He dreaded the hardship of travel, the poor hotel accommodations, the lonesome evenings, and the long separation from his family. There is little doubt that the decision to undertake the tour was prompted by one consideration only-the urgent need for money. Against the background of this harassment during the summer of 1871, Mark Twain worked on the manuscript of his new book Roughing It and tried as best he could to prepare for the extensive tour arranged by his manager, James Redpath. The choice of a suitable lecture topic gave him considerable trouble.3 He finally settled upon Reminiscences of Some Uncommonplace Characters I Have Chanced to Meet, featuring Artemus Ward, Dick Baker the quartz-miner, Riley the journalist, the King of the Sandwich Islands, and others.4 But this lecture proved immediately and completely unsatisfactory, and Mark Twain abandoned it after four disappointing performances in eastern Pennsylvania.5

Artemus Ward in California and Nevada, 1863-1864

Artemus Ward in California and Nevada, 1863-1864

Mark Twain's Lecture from Roughing it

IN THE FALL of I87I Mark Twain began an extensive lecture tour under the management of James Redpath, proprietor of the Boston Lyceum Bureau. The lecture he had prepared bore the title of Some Pleasant Characters I Have Met. was a humorous commenitary on acquaintances, ranging from kings to lunatics and idiots.' But by October 27 he had dropped the nasty, nauseous Reminiscences in favor of a new lecture called Ward Humorist which he had written the previous week end.2 This lecture, hastily written, lasted about five weeks. Then on December 8 he asked Redpath to all hands that from this time I shall talk nothing but selections from my forthcoming book It. Tried it last night. Suits me tip-top.3 The Roughing It lecture proved a happy choice. was almost universally well received, and he finished the tour without further change. In the interval, however, before Redpath could notify local sponsoring groups of the change in billing, Mark Twain encountered difficulty in persuading local chairmen to agree to the unannounced shift in program. At Lansing, Michigan, for example, where he lectured December I4,4 the chairman consented reluctantly. Since the Artemus Ward lecture had been widely publicized, he feared the change in plan would be a bit risky. That it was in fact risky was demonstrated two nights later at Kalamazoo, where Mark Twain provoked the following attack from a reporter on the Daily Telegraph :5

Artemus ward

Artemus ward Get access Archibald Sparke Archibald Sparke Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume 150, Issue 3, 16 January 1926, Page 45, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/150.3.45a Published: 16 January 1926