Complete Works of Artemus Ward - Part 1: Essays, Sketches, and Letters

Artemus Ward

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. The present edition is of a work which has been for more than thirty years prominently before the public, and which may justly be said to have maintained a standard character. It is issued because of a demand for a BETTER EDITION than has ever been published.

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 06 novembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819947172
• Langue: English

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PUBLISHERS' PREFACE TO THE NEW (1898)EDITION.
The present edition is of a work which has been formore than thirty years prominently before the public, and which mayjustly be said to have maintained a standard character. It isissued because of a demand for a BETTER EDITION than has ever beenpublished.
In order to supply this acknowledged want, thepublishers have enlarged and perfected this edition by adding somematter not heretofore published in book form.
More than one hundred thousand copies of the workhave been printed. The plates had become so worn as to render itunreadable, yet the sale kept on. In preparing this new edition,many of the author's fragmentary pieces, not contained in the oldedition, have been added. The earliest of the author's writings,published in periodicals in 1862, are included, together with manyadditional illustrations, which now, for the first time, make thework complete.
It is universally conceded that no country in theworld has ever produced a genius like Artemus Ward. Writers ofACKNOWLEDGED GENIUS are never very numerous. He attained a greatand deserved popularity, which will be lasting.
It has been observed that the wit of one generationis rarely appreciated by the next, but this is not true of ArtemusWard. There is a constant demand for his writings, for the reasonthat his jokes require no appendix for their elucidation. No onewho speaks the English language can fail to appreciate hiswonderful humor. It will always be funny. There is a fascinationabout it which can neither be questioned nor resisted. Hisparticular niche in the temple of Fame will not be claimed byanother. His intellect was sharp and electric. He saw the humor ofanything at a glance, and his manner of relating theselaughter-provoking absurdities is original and “fetching. ”
PRELIMINARY NOTES BY JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN.
Piccadilly, W. Jan. 30, 1865.
There is a story of two “smart” Yankees, one namedHosea and the other Hezekiah, who met in an oyster shop in Boston.Said Hosea, “As to opening oysters, why nothing's easier if youonly know how. ” “And how's how? ” asked Hezekiah. “Scotch snuff, ”replied Hosea, very gravely— “Scotch snuff. Bring a little of itever so near their noses, and they'll sneeze their lids off. ” “Iknow a man who knows a better plan, ” observed Hezekiah. “Hespreads the bivalves in a circle, seats himself in the centre,reads a chapter of Artemus Ward to them, and goes on until they getinterested. One by one they gape with astonishment at A. Ward'swhoppers, and as they gape my friend whips 'em out, peppers away,and swallows 'em. ”
Excellent as all that Artemus Ward writes really is,and exuberantly overflowing with humour as are nearly all hisarticles, it is too bad to accuse him of telling “whoppers. ” Onthe contrary, the old Horatian question of “Who shall forbid me tospeak truth in laughter? ” seems ever present to his mind. Hislatest production is the admirable paper “Artemus Ward among theFenians” which appears in Part 7.
If Artemus has on any occasion really told“whoppers, ” it has been in his announcements of being about tovisit England. From time to time he has stated his intention ofvisiting this country, and from time to time has he disappointedhis English friends.
He was coming to England after his trip toCalifornia, when, laden with gold, he could think of no betterplace to spend it in.
He was on his way to England when he and hiscompanion, Mr. Hingston, encountered the Pi-ute Indians, andnarrowly escaped scalping.
He was leaving for England with “Betsy Jane” and the“snaiks” before the American war was ended.
He had unscrewed the head of each of his “waxfiggers, ” and sent each on board in a carpet-bag, labelled “ForEngland, ” just as Mr Lincoln was assassinated.
He was hastening to England when the news came a fewweeks ago that he had been blown up in an oil well!
He has been on his way to England in every newspaperof the
American Union for the last two years.
Here is the latest announcement:
“Artemus Ward, in a private letter, states thatDoctor Kumming, the famous London seer and profit, having foretoldthat the end of the world will happen on his own birthday inJanuary 1867, he, Artemus, will not visit England until the latterend of 1866, when the people there will be selling off, and dollarswill be plentiful. Mr. Ward says that he shall leave England in thelast steamer, in time to see the American eagle spread his wings,and with the stars and stripes in his beek and tallents, sore awayto his knativ empyrehum. — ” American Paper.
But even this is likely to be a “whopper, ” for amore reliable private letter from Artemus declares his fixedpurpose to leave for England in the steamship City of Boston earlyin June; and the probabilities are that he will be stepping onEnglish shores just about the time that these pages go topress.
Lest anything should happen to him, and England befor ever deprived of seeing him, the most recent production of hispen, together with two or three of his best things, are hereembalmed for preservation, on the principle adopted by theaffectionate widow of the bear-trainer of Perpignan. “I havenothing left, ” said the woman; “I am absolutely without a roof toshelter me and the poor animal. ” “Animal! ” exclaimed the prefect;“you don't mean to say that you keep the bear that devoured yourhusband? ” “Alas! ” she replied, “it is all that is left to me ofthe poor dear man! ”
If any other excuse be needed for thus presentingthe British public with A. Ward's “last, ” in addition to thepertinency of the article and its real merit, that excuse may befound in the fact that it is thoroughly new to readers on this sideof the Atlantic.
The general public will undoubtedly receive “ArtemusWard among the Fenians” with approving laughter. Should it fallinto the hands of a philo-Fenian the effect may be different. Tohim it would probably have the wrong action of the Yankeebone-picking machine.
“I've got a new machine, ” said a Yankee pedlar,“for picking bones out of fish. Now, I tell you, it's a leetle bitthe darndest thing you ever did see. All you have to do is to setit on a table and turn a crank, and the fish flies right down yourthroat and the bones right under the grate. Well, there was acountry greenhorn got hold of it the other day, and he turned thecrank the wrong way; and, I tell you, the way the bones flew downhis throat was awful. Why, it stuck that fellow so full of bones,that he could not get his shirt off for a whole week! ”
In addition to the paper on the Fenians, two otherarticles by Artemus Ward are reprinted in the present work. Onerelates to the city of Washington, and the other to the author'simaginary town of Baldinsville. Both are highly characteristic ofthe writer and of his quaint spellings— a heterography not more oddthan that of the postmaster of Shawnee County, Missouri, who,returning his account to the General Office, wrote, “I hearbysertify that the four going A-Counte is as nere Rite as I now howto make It, if there is any mistake it is not Dun a purpers. ”
Artemus Ward has created a new model for funnywriters; and the fact is noticeable that, in various parts of thiscountry as well as in his own, he has numerous puny imitators, whosuppose that by simply adopting his comic spelling they can writequite as well as he can. Perhaps it would be as well if theyremembered the joke of poor Thomas Hood, who said that he couldwrite as well as Shakespere if he had the mind to, but the troublewas— he had not got the mind.
* * *
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH BY MELVILLE D. LANDON.
Charles Farrar Browne, better known to the world as"Artemus
Ward, " was born at Waterford, Oxford County, Maine,on the
twenty-sixth of April, 1834, and died of consumptionat
Southampton, England, on Wednesday, the sixth ofMarch, 1867.
His father, Levi Browne, was a land surveyor, andJustice of the Peace. His mother, Caroline E. Brown, is stillliving, and is a descendant from Puritan stock.
Mr. Browne's business manager, Mr. Hingston, onceasked him about his Puritanic origin, when he replied: “I think wecame from Jerusalem, for my father's name was Levi and we had aMoses and a Nathan in the family, but my poor brother's name wasCyrus; so, perhaps, that makes us Persians. ”
Charles was partially educated at the Waterfordschool, when family circumstances induced his parents to apprenticehim to learn the rudiments of printing in the office of the“Skowhegan Clarion, ” published some miles to the north of hisnative village. Here he passed through the dreadful ordeal to whicha printer's “devil” is generally subjected. He always kept histemper; and his eccentric boy jokes are even now told by theresidents of Skowhegan.
In the spring, after his fifteenth birthday, CharlesBrowne bade farewell to the “Skowhegan Clarion; ” and we next hearof him in the office of the “Carpet-Bag, ” edited by B. P.Shillaber (“Mrs. Partington”). Lean, lank, but strangelyappreciative, young Browne used to “set up” articles from the pensof Charles G. Halpine (“Miles O'Reilly”) and John G. Saxe, thepoet. Here he wrote his first contribution in a disguised hand,slyly put it into the editorial box, and the next day disguised hispleasure while setting it up himself. The article was a descriptionof a Fourth of July celebration in Skowhegan. The spectacle of theday was a representation of the battle of Yorktown, with G.Washington and General Horace Cornwallis in character. The articlepleased Mr. Shillaber, and Mr. Browne, afterwards speaking of it,said: “I went to the theatre that evening, had a good time of it,and thought I was the greatest man in Boston. ”
While engaged on the “Carpet-Bag, ” the subject ofour sketch closely studied the theatre and courted the society ofactors and actresses. It was in this way that he gained thatcorrect and valuable knowledge of the texts and characters of thedrama, which enabled him in after years to burlesque them sosuccessfully. The