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ISBN

9781440063527

Publication Date

1874

Price

15.65

Publisher

G. W. Carleton & Co.

Abstract

Meg Groeling analyzes nineteenth-century American humor by examining the musings of Artemus Ward—alternate persona to Charles Farrar Browne—and his fans’ reactions to his work, including that of Abraham Lincoln. Browne’s Ward was an “illiterate rube with ‘Yankee’ common sense,” Groeling explains. In short order, his schtick evolved from newspaper essays to an internationally touring live-action show, complete with purposefully failing props and special effects. Groeling insists it is important for us to understand nineteenth-century-Americans’ humor because humor can tell us a lot about the folks of the Civil War era, “And those folks loved Artemus Ward.”

DOI

10.31390/cwbr.24.2.03

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