Twain and his contemporaries embodied a new type of humor unique to the United States. In this collection of caricatures originally created by British cartoonist Frederick Waddy for the journal Once a Week, Waddy depicts Twain riding a frog as a…
Twain quickly rose to prominence as one of the foremost American humorists. He nominally edited this compilation of American humor that bears his name, but author William Dean Howells and newspaper editor Charles Hopkins Clark did the lion’s share of…
Artemus Ward was a persona adopted by author and speaker Charles Farrar Browne. Ward, an illiterate but ironically wise character, traveled broadly, and his books are filled with humorous observations on the American West and Europe. Browne’s comic…
Founded by Bret Harte and C. H. Webb (who published The Jumping Frog in 1867), The Californian contains some of Twain’s best humor writing. The October 1, 1864, issue contains his earliest article in the journal signed as Mark Twain: “A Notable…
Founded by Bret Harte and C. H. Webb (who published The Jumping Frog in 1867), The Californian contains some of Twain’s best humor writing. The October 1, 1864, issue contains his earliest article in the journal signed as Mark Twain: “A Notable…
The group of humorists known as the “Phunny Phellows” produced broad and folksy humor that often depended on comic misspellings and malapropisms. Twain resented being associated with these authors, whose work often lacked his sharper satirical aims.
The group of humorists known as the “Phunny Phellows” produced broad and folksy humor that often depended on comic misspellings and malapropisms. Twain resented being associated with these authors, whose work often lacked his sharper satirical aims.
The January 26, 1861, issue of Vanity Fair includes a sketch titled “The North Star,” which features a character named Mark Twain, possibly the original source of Clemens’s iconic pen name. This humor magazine, edited by Clemens’s friend Charles…
A young Twain is captured here by preeminent New York photographer Jeremiah Gurney, who founded the first national organization of photographers: the American Daguerre Association.
Twain’s jumping frog story remains popular to the present day, as represented by this modern fine press edition featuring illustrations by Alan James Robinson and an elegant binding by Daniel E. Kelm.