Artemus Ward

1834–1867 · American humorist and lecturer, pen name of Charles Farrar Browne

Charles Farrar Browne (1834–1867) wrote and performed as Artemus Ward, the deadpan travelling-showman persona whose misspelled letters and sold-out lectures made him one of the most popular American humorists of the 1860s. He befriended Mark Twain in Virginia City, Nevada, and recommended him to New York editors. Browne moved to England in 1866 and died of tuberculosis at Southampton on 6 March 1867; his remains were returned to Waterford, Maine the following year. Every book bearing his name was published in his lifetime or shortly after — and none of them contains this sentence.

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