Some Northern Humorists: Before and After the Civil War Era


Representative Writers and Works

Thomas Chandler Haliburton ( 1796-1865 ). A Nova Scotian who belongs in this list.

• The Clockmaker; or The Sayings of Samuel Slick of Slickville. First Series. ( 1836 ).
• The Clockmaker. Second Series ( 1838 ).
• The Clockmaker. Third Series ( 1840 ).
• The Old Judge; or, Life in a Colony ( 1849 ).

Seba Smith ( 1792-1868 ). Pen name: Major Jack Downing.

• The Life and Writings of Major Jack Downing of Downingville ( 1833 ).
• Select Letters of Major Jack Downing ( 1834 ).
• 'Way Down East ( 1854 ).
• My 30 Years Out of the Senate ( 1859 ).

Henry Wheeler Shaw ( 1818-1885 ). Pen name: Josh Billings.

• Josh Billings: Hiz Sayings ( 1866 ).
• Farmer's Allminax ( 1869-1880 ). Published annually.
• Josh Billings on Ice and Other Things ( 1868 ).
• Everybody's Friend, or Josh Billings' Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor ( 1876 ).
• Quotations from Billings

David Ross Locke ( 1833-1888 ). Pen name: Petroleum V[esuvius] Nasby.

• The Nasby Papers ( 1864 ).
• Divers Views, Opinions, and Prophecies ( 1865 ).
• Swingin' Round the Cirkle ( 1866 ). Illustrated by Thomas Nast
• Ekkoes from Kentucky ( 1868 ).
• The Moral History of America's Life Struggle ( 1872 ).
• The Struggles ( Social, Financial and Political ) of Petroleum V. Nasby, &c. ( 1872 ). Illustrated by Nast.
• The Morals of Abou Ben Adhem ( 1875 ).
• A Paper City ( 1878 ). Reprint by Gregg, 1968.
• Hannah Jane ( 1881 ).
• Nasby in Exile ( 1882 ).
• The Demagogue ( 1891 ). Reprint by Gregg, 1970.

Charles Farrar Browne ( 1834-1867 ). Pen name: Artemus Ward.

• Artemus Ward, His Book ( 1862 ).
• Artemus Ward, His Travels ( 1865 ).
• Artemus Ward's Punch Letter
• The Complete Works ( 1867 ).

Robert H. Newell ( 1836-1901 ). Pen name: Orpheus C. Kerr.

• The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers ( 1862-1871 ). Five volumes of Newell's letters published in various newspapers during the war.
• The Palace Beautiful and Other Poems ( 1865 ).
• The Cloven Foot ( 1870 ).
• Versatilities ( 1871 ).
• The Walking Doll, or The Asters and Disasters of Society ( 1872 ).
• There Was a Man ( 1884 ).

James Whitcomb Riley ( 1849-1916 ).

• "The Old Swimmin'-Hole" and 'Leven More Poems ( 1883 ). Page Images
• Afterwhiles ( 1887 ). Page Images
• Pipes o' Pan at Zekesbury ( 1888 ).
• Old-Fashioned Roses ( 1888 ). Page Images
• The Flying Islands of the Night ( 1891 ). Page Images
• Rhymes of Childhood( 1891 ). Page Images
• Green Fields and Running Brooks ( 1892 ).
• Poems Here at Home ( 1893 ). Page Images
• Armazindy ( 1894 ). Page Images
• Rubaiyat of Doc Sifers ( 1897 ). Page Images
• Riley Child Rhymes ( 1899 ).
• Riley Love-Lyrics ( 1899 ). Page Images
• Book of Joyous Children ( 1902 ).
• The Boys of the Old Glee Club ( 1907 ).
• Letters of James Whitcomb Riley. Edited by William Lyon Phelps. Bobbs, Merrill, 1930.
  

Eugene Field ( 1850-1895 ).

• The Tribune Primer ( 1882 ). Disastrous advice to children, made worse, and funnier, by its primer style.
• Culture's Garland. Being Memoranda of the Gradual Rise of Literature, Art, Music and Society in Chicago and Other Western Ganglia ( 1887 ).
• A Little Book of Western Verse ( 1889 ).
• Echoes from the Sabine Farm ( 1891 ). Fields' and his brother Roswell's translations from Horace, lacking entirely in the Roman poet's variety of verse forms.
• With Trumpet and Drum ( 1892 ).
• Love Songs of Childhood ( 1894 ). Page Images
• Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac ( 1896 ). On Line
• Sharps and Flats ( 1900 ). A collection of Field's paragraphs written for his column in the Chicago Daily News.

Edgar Wilson Nye ( 1850-1896 ). Pen name: Bill Nye.

• Bill Nye and Boomerang ( 1881 ).
• Remarks by Bill Nye ( 1886 ).
• Sparks from the Pen of Bill Nye ( 1892 ).
• Bill Nye's History of the U. S. ( 1894 ).
• A Guest at Ludlow and Other Stories ( 1896 ).
• Bill Nye, His Own Life Story ( 1926 ). Continuation by Frank Wilson Nye.

About These Humorists
Robert Conrow, Field Days: The Life, Times, and Reputation of Eugene Field. Scribner's, 1974.
Richard Crowder, Those Innocent Years: The Legacy and Inheritance of a Hero of the Victorian Era, James Whitcomb Riley. Bobbs, Merrill, 1957.
Charles H. Dennis, Eugene Field's Creative Years. Doubleday, Page, 1924.
Marcus Dickey, The Maturity of James Whitcomb Riley. Bobbs, Merrill, 1922.
_____________, The Youth of James Whitcomb Riley. Bobbs, Merrill, 1919.
Henry W. Fisher, Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field. Nicholas L. Brown, 1922.
John Harrison, The Man Who Made Nasby, David Ross Locke. North Carolina, 1969.
Edward Hingston, Genial Showman: Being the Reminiscences of the Life of Artemus Ward. ( 1870, Reprinted, Imprint Society, with introduction by Walter Muir Whitehill, 1971.
David B. Kesterson, Bill Nye. Twayne, 1981.
Melville D. Landon, Kings of the Platform and Pulpit: Biographies, Reminiscences and Lectures of Artemus Ward, Mark Twain, Nasby, Josh Billings. Werner, 1895.
John Daniel Logan, Thomas Chandler Haliburton. Ryerson Press, n.d.
Jeanette Covert Nolan, James Whitcomb Riley. Messner, 1941.
___________________, A Poet of the People: An Evaluation of James Whitcomb Riley. Indiana, 1951.
Anthony J. and Dorothy R. Russo, A Bibliography of James Whitcomb Riley. Indiana Historical Society, 1944.
Don C. Seitz, Artemus Ward ( Charles Farrar Browne ): A Biography and Bibliography. Harper, 1919.
Slason Thompson, Eugene Field: A Study in Heredity and Contradictions. Two volumes. Scribner's, 1901.
________________, Life of Eugene Field. Appleton, 1927.
Francis Wilson, The Eugene Field I Knew. Scribner's, 1898.
Artemus Ward from The Buckeye Chronicles.
The Lockerbie Home of James Whitcomb Riley

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