About Biographies Works Saturday Press Introduction Search Individuals Groups Search More images... Travel Writer, Essayist, Novelist, Editor, Journalist, Lecturer. Born in small-town New England, Charles Browne began his career as a young contributor to the Boston Carpet Bag The Plain Dealer he adopted the persona of circus showman Artemus Ward. As Ward, he began writing letters from this fictional character whose travels inspired social commentaries, satires, and burlesques. Vanity Fair in addition to writing the Artemus Ward stories and letters, and by 1862 Artemus Ward, His Book , a collection containing the best of the Artemus sketches and letters, was published. The Ward sketches play on the regional differences of the country, combining Down East drollery with Southwest humor. By the early 1860s, "Artemus Ward" became a traveling road show, and Browne began offering lectures as Ward in territories as far-flung as the American West, Canada, and London. Pfaff’s regular Elihu Vedder recalls that when Ward lectured, all of them would go to see him; once Ward joked about Vedder’s painting, The Lair of the Sphinx , and in the recognition that followed, Vedder states that "I felt what Fame was, for the first time" ( | |
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