The Biographical Dictionary of America/Browne, Charles Farrar

BROWNE, Charles Farrar (Artemus Ward), humorist, was born at Water ford, Me., April 26, 1834. He was educated in the public schools; learned the printer's trade in the office of the Skowhegan Clarion, and on the Boston Carpet Bag, where he published his first humorous story, a description of Skowhegan Fourth of July celebration. He went to Tiffin, Ohio, and from there to Toledo, where he was engaged as a compositor and local reporter on the Commercial. Everything he saw assumed a comical aspect, and he saw fun everywhere, even at the funeral of a man noted for his bitter speech, where he remarked, "Well, after all, he makes a nice quiet corpse." His lips were always smiling. His very looks, with all his assumption of gravity, were provocative of laughter. In the summer of 1858, when twenty-four years old, he went to Cleveland to write for the Plaindealer, and his connection with this paper enlarged his reputation and its circulation. His quaint and extravagant humor took with the people, and his sober writing, masking unexpected conceits, excited much interest and quickened a desire to know what the next surprise would be. It was at this time he assumed the pseudonym, "Artemus Ward—Showman." His first letter in that character, addressed to the editor and written at the time to "fill space," was an unexpected success and gave him wide introduction as a humorist. His peculiar spelling was one of the original features of these letters, but the merit of their real and kindly humor was their attraction. The "Moral Show" took Cleveland by storm, and scarcely a day passed without some country reader of the Plaindealer applying at its counting-room for a sight of the "Kankaroo," the moral "Bares" and the wonderful wax "figgers." After several years' connection with the Plaindealer, he removed to New York, and for a while was a contributor to, and afterwards editor of, a short-lived journal, Vanity Fair. Of this venture he said: "I wrote some comic copy and it killed it. The poor paper got to be a conundrum and so I gave it up." He began his career as a lecturer Dec. 23, 1861, in Clinton hall. New York, before a scant audience of a few friends and some curiosity seekers. His subject was "Babes in the Woods." This first venture resulted in a loss of thirty dollars, but the after ones were wonderfully successful, as was his lecture on The Mormons and Sixty Minutes in Africa. He visited California in 1862, delivering lectures to large audiences, and on his return spent a few weeks in Utah, where he obtained material for his popular panoramic lecture on Mormonism. In 1866 he visited England, and was received at the "Literary Club," London, and welcomed by Charles Reade and in literary circles generally. His lectures at Egyptian hall, which began in November, were continued without interruption for eleven weeks, when his health, which had begun to fail him before he left home, became so bad that in February, 1867, he was obliged to seek rest on the Island of Jersey. He failed to recuperate, and when he attempted to return home he breathed his last at Southampton, England, and his remains were carried back to America, and placed beside those of his father in the cemetery at Waterford, Me. While in England he was a frequent contributor to Punch, and his papers, Artemus Ward in London, published in that periodical, contain some of his most graphic and humorous sketches, notably liis first contribution. At the Tomb of Shakespeare. It may be said of him that he made the world happier by his living in it. Laughter is a good medicine, and he compounded it with skill and prescribed it with unfailing success. He provided in his will for an asylum for printers and for the care of their orphan children; for the education of a young man in whom he had become interested, and for his widowed mother, for whom during his life he showed an affection peculiarly beautiful. His published works are: Artemns Ward, His Book. Artemus Ward, His Travels (1865); Artemus Ward in London (1867); Artemus Ward's Lecture (1869). His complete works were issued in 1875 under the title, Artemus Ward, His Works Complete. He died March 6, 1867.