#humorists

Milestone Monday

On this day, October 7 in 1849, American writer, poet, and humorist James Whitcomb Riley (1849–1916) was born in Greenfield, Indiana. Know as the "Hoosier Poet," Riley helped to establish a Midwestern literary identity.

To commemorate this milestone, we present some pages from Nye and Riley's Railway Guide, which Riley wrote with fellow Midwestern humorist Edgar W. Nye (1850-1896), published in Chicago by the Dearborn Publishing Company in 1888. In 1885, Riley and Nye formed a partnership and began touring the country to give joint presentations. This book, produced during their touring days, is a collection of humorous anecdotes and poems intended to parody popular tourist literature of the day, and was successful enough to go through at least three reprints.

Most of the illustrations shown here are by American cartoonist Walt McDougall (1858-1938), but the book includes illustrations by several other artists, including Baron de Grimm and Eugene Zimmerman.

Publishers' Binding Thursday

It's been a couple of weeks since we shared a publishers' binding with our fine internet friends, so here's a bright one to start the semester off right! This is Bill Nye's Chestnuts Old and New: Latest Gathering. Bill Nye is a pen name used by American humorist and founder of the Laramie Boomerang (which he named after his mule) Edgar Wilson Nye (1850-1896). Nye was educated in River Falls, WI and later moved to Laramie in the Wyoming territory in 1876, where he was justice of the peace, superintendent of schools, a member of the city council, and postmaster.

This book is a collection of humorous short tales or vignettes published by John Lovell Co. around 1888. The cover is a bright blue book cloth with some swirly knots and arches with what looks like a griffin without wings at the center surrounded by leaves. The spine has similar patterns and the title and author stamped in a gold box. It features "new illustrations from original sketches, photographs, memoranda, and authenic sources by Williams, Opper, and Hopkins."

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Staff Pick of the Week: Twain’s “Revenge Translation”

Mark Twain wrote, “I am quite sure I that (bar one) I have no race prejudices.” It is generally interpreted that the prejudice to which Twain referred is toward the French. As is often the case with Twain, it can be difficult to determine the sincerity of his ribbing; in Mark Twain and France: The Making of a New American Identity, the authors argue that Twain used France “as a kind of foil ... to help build a modern American sense of cultural self.” Sincere or not, Twain’s antipathy toward the French is on full display in The Jumping Frog: in English, then in French, then Clawed Back into a Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unremunerated Toil. Perhaps it would amuse Mr. Clemons that I came across this title because I am a bit of a francophile! Our first edition copy was published in New York in 1903 by Harper & Brothers, with illustrations by Frederick Strothmann.

The frog tale, Mark Twain’s first published short story, first appeared under the title “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog” in November of 1865 in the literary weekly The Saturday Press. It was widely reprinted; Twain continued to refine the story and a new version appeared in The Californian a month later with the title “The Celebrated Jumping From of Calaveras County.” Keeping this title, it appeared again as the titular story in Twain’s first book, a collection of short stories published in an edition of 1000 in 1867 by American News Company, edited by Twain’s good friend Charles Henry Webb. Issued in seven different colored bindings, the sales were lackluster, but it has since become a hot item among rare book collectors.

A French translation of the story was completed by Thérèse Bentzon and published in 1872 in the monthly magazine Revue des deux Mondes, embedded in an essay about American humorists that Twain interpreted as condescending. He complained that Bentzon’s translation stripped all the humor from the story, and cited that as the impetus for “clawing back” the story into English, but it might have been Bentzon’s characterization of Twain as an unrefined rube that really got his goat. His retaliatory “retranslation” is a word-for-word translation retaining the French syntax. Therefore, it reads like the early days of computer-assisted translators when it was a fun party game to see who could come up with the most convoluted phrase by translating it into another language and back (although maybe this is something only English-major nerds did?). Whether read as a meditation on the limits of translation or an example of pre-internet literary trolling, it is a fun little book. 

Find more Staff Picks here. 

Check out past posts on Mark Twain here.