1834–1867 · American humorist, editor & comic lecturer
Charles Farrar Browne of Waterford, Maine wrote and performed as Artemus Ward, a barely literate travelling showman whose deadpan delivery made him one of America's first great comic lecturers. He edited the original Vanity Fair until it folded in 1863, mentored the young Mark Twain in Nevada, and counted Abraham Lincoln among his readers — the President read his sketch “Outrage in Utiky” to the Cabinet before presenting the Emancipation Proclamation. He died in 1867, having left behind a throwaway advertising gag that outlived almost everything he wrote on purpose.