William S. Walsh

William Shepard Walsh was an American editor and anthologist whose Handy-Book of Literary Curiosities (J. B. Lippincott, 1892) gathered hundreds of literary oddities, hoaxes and coincidences into a single alphabetical compendium. He did not invent the “?”/“!” joke — it was already in print four years before he was born — but his book is the earliest known printing that pins it on a real writer, and every later telling descends from that page, including the Guinness Book’s and, eventually, Oscar Wilde’s.