gist, collected “ shorter American stories, ” many comic, in Stories of American Life; by
American Writers
, in three volumes, published in London by Henry Colburn and
Richard Bently in that year. Washington Irving was omitted, “ in spite of [a] few
inimitable sketches
…
his writings are essentially European
”
(iv). James Kirke
Paulding, however, was well represented, along with Julian Verplank, James Hall,
John Neal, N. P. Willis, and others; subjects ranged
“
from Otter
-
bag and Pete
Fetherton, down to the fi ne lady in the Country Cousin, and Monsieur de Viellecour,
most courtly of refugees ” (v). Miss Mitford sought the “ national and characteristic ”
by grasping
“
at the broadest caricature, so that it contained indications of local
manners; and clutched the wildest sketch, so that it gave the bold outline of local
scenery ” (vi). The opportunistic Yankee traveler made his appearance in Verplank ’ s
“ The Peregrinations of Petrus Mudd, ” along with reformed idlers, would - be profi teers
who get their comeuppance, and oddly matched lovers and marital couples in J. K.
Paulding ’ s “ The Little Dutch Sentinel. ” The literary pretender, in this case named
Huggins, dies of mortifi cation that his great work goes unappreciated (III. 225 – 30)
in “ Reminiscences of New York, ” a rambling review of the go - getter characters of the
city, representative of its democracy. She also included the new American scene:
Indians from the frontier wars were obvious, but so was the Washington profi teer -
parvenu, in “ Scenes in Washington, ” where characters criticize themselves as rough
speakers of the “ vernacular ” and predatory representatives of the “ gyneocracy, ” (II.
294) in recognition of the changing status of women. One comic sketch mentioned
above displayed the American international traveler as a “ go - getter, ” a theme that
remained popular among humorists for the next century, and after. Mitford, however,
missed one of the greatest works in this tradition, J. K. Paulding ’ s “ Jonathan Visits
the Celestial Empire, ” in which a Yankee traveler traverses the world and Chinese
society with a Newfoundland dog as fi rst mate, and exposes the life of the city in
terms that look forward to Twain ’ s travels (rpt. in Sloane, LHUNE 50 – 62). North-
eastern and Western stories are more literary in style than the rambunctious frontier
tales to come out of the Southwest, but they are clearly American, nonetheless, and
Twain owed his debt to the whole tradition, not just a part of it.
The frontier was a major presence, but so was the urban frontier of new social types.
Miss Mitford ’ s dismissal of Washington Irving slighted the school of Northeastern
and Knickerbocker humor, some of it Boston - based or Down - East, which displayed
not only unique history but, also, the new American urban scene in the Northeast,
accompanied by greenhorns, na ï ve farmers ready for plucking, and Yankee democratic
character - types and entrepreneurs seeking to perform not only locally but on a national
and international scale. The widely recognized “ Old Southwest ” was the other crucial
part of the range of new American experiences in literary comedy. Later scholars have
corrected Mitford ’ s dismissal of Irving. In their landmark collection, The Humor of the
80
David E. E. Sloane
Old Southwest , Cohen and Dillingham noted especially Irving ’ s “ The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow ” as an infl uence in the Southwest, where a bold roughhouse tradition sub-
sumed it readily.
Thomas Chandler Haliburton , Canadian father of “ Sam Slick, ” who himself fi gures
in the history of the “ North American ” comic story, anthologized his counterparts
from the States about twenty years after Miss Mitford. Traits of American Humour by
Native Authors was published in London by Hurst and Blackett in 1852. Haliburton
threw his net wider than had Mitford. He included many of the truly great and rep-
resentative pieces of American Southwestern humor, which by that time had fl owered.
“
The Shooting Match
”
and
“
The Horse Swap
”
by Augustus Baldwin Longstreet
appeared, along with “ Georgia Theatrics. ” Mike Fink and Davy Crockett were repre-
sented; William T. Thompson ’ s “ The Coon Hunt; or, a Fency Country, ” forerunner
of the blizzard episode in Roughing It , appeared along with Thomas Bangs Thorpe ’ s
“ The Big Bear of Arkansas, ” the signature story for the genre of Southwestern humor.
Haliburton noted that their characteristics were distinctive. They were often presented
as narratives by a somewhat vulgar or vernacular speaker. They usually featured local
scenery and characteristics integrated into the action and helping to identify the
experience. Almost always, they showed traits of regional dialect and local speech.
American words and democratic phrases jostled more pretentious language and pro-
vided a formidable tool in depicting the horse swap, the fi ght, the swindler, and the
urban bully. Last, but by no means least, they often registered vulgarity, greed, or
entrepreneurialism. Haliburton recognized these stories as representative of the
broader Yankee spirit of all Americans. “ The Fastest Funeral on Record, ” by Francis
A. Durivage, “ The Big Bear of Arkansas, ” by Thomas Bangs Thorpe, “ Peter Brush,
the Great Used - up, ” by Joseph C. Neal, and an array of the best regional stories make
this an impressive compilation across regional boundaries, and Haliburton ’ s “ Preface ”
is remarkable in laying out the dimensions of the American comic short story.
Haliburton found the stories not merely characterized as “ regional, ” but more
accurately described as local, rather than general in theme and topic. He found each
region representing its own characteristics, as different as British, Irish, and Scottish,
for which he substituted Yankee Northeastern, Southern, and Western. Appropri-
ately, the fi rst piece in his anthology is “ My First and Last Speech in the General
Court, ” which shows a blowhard Down - East farmer suffering comic retribution for
his stuffy, bombastic oration to the Massachusetts legislature. It is followed by “ Hoss
Allen, of Missouri, ” “ The Widow Rugby ’ s Husband ” by Johnson Jones Hooper, and
Thorpe ’ s “ The Big Bear of Arkansas. ” Haliburton is at pains to show that every region
took a hand, and the colorful characters of the frontier ventured both north and south
of the Mason - Dixon Line, and off the far western end, as well.
Politics, courtship, and local swaps and commercial ventures make up much of
the content of the genre Haliburton displays, the primary interests of nineteenth -
century Americans and still largely dominant today. His major distinction empha-
sized the development of a new American language. The popular and vulgar voice
was a primary characteristic, showing neologisms, Indian derivations, and sheer dialect
Mark
Twain
inventions. He concluded his preface with a discussion of regional intonations and a
lengthy table of peculiarly enunciated American words (Haliburton v – ix). He noted
a large number of phrases from American politics ( “ to cave in, ” “ a fl ash in the pan, ”
to fi zzle out ” ), Indian words ( “ hominy, ” “ tapioca, ” “ barbecue, ” “ pow - wow ” ), Spanish
( “ canyon, ” “ cavortin ” ), French ( “ calaboose, ” “ bayou ” ), and the broader vowels of
American English itself ( “ bar ” for “ bear, ” “ thar ” for “ their, ” and a hundred others,
which he lists).
Haliburton credits William T. Porter ’ s racing paper, The Spirit of the Times (1831 –
61) as the primary source of American comic stories from their beginning, which he
ascribes to the 1820s, although he also cites the earlier New York Constellation , as a
comic paper of signifi cance.
“
The Comic Paper Question,
”
itself, is complicated
because many comic periodicals appeared and disappeared rapidly. Periodicals fueled
the growth of the American humorous story. Oral tales and reminiscences could be
captured, written down, manipulated intellectually, and then be seen into print easily.
Many of the Southwestern comic writers consciously intended to capture their era as
a passing phenomenon. In the Northeast, the spirit was somewhat contained, particu-
larly in focusing on social and economic issues while mostly omitting the more grossly
physical that the Southwest embraced. Many of the major periodicals of the 1830 – 60
period were Northeastern, with the exception of the New Orleans Picayune and the
St. Louis Reveille . Porter ’ s Spirit of the Times was a New York racing paper aimed at
the railroad car rather than the domestic parlor; horse swaps, sweaty, earthy women,
vulgar speech, and even more vulgar action were accepted. Before Porter there were
others. Most immediately coming to mind is George Helmbold ’ s Philadelphia Tickler ,
from 1809 through 1813, and then again briefl y after the close of the War of 1812,
in 1816 – 17. Helmbold was happy to publish satiric sketches of Irish low - lifes and
local politicos gone corrupt. When Joseph C. Neal began publishing his sketches of
“ City Worthies ” in the Pennsylvania Gazette in the mid - 1830s, he might well be
considered to be taking up the earlier urban tradition. The New York Knickerbocker
edited by Lewis Gaylord Clark was also a lively outlet for comic writers, but with a
more literary turn than Porter ’ s racing sheet, refl ecting its antecedents in Washington
Irving ’ s and James Kirke Paulding ’ s Salmagundi of the same period as Helmbold ’ s
venture.
The most eclectic of the early nineteenth - century anthologizers of American humor
was the Philadelpia actor and comic writer W. E. Burton. As described by Edgar
Allan Poe in
“
A Chapter on Autography,
”
“
Mr. BURTON is better known as a
comedian than as a literary man; but he has written many short prose articles of merit,
and his quondam editorship of the
‘
Gentleman
’
s Magazine
’
would, at all events,
entitle him to a place in this collection. He has, moreover, published one or two
books. ” His most notable book came later: Burton ’ s Cyclopedia of Wit and Humor ,
published in New York in 1858, is a major contribution. Burton offered four sections,
“ American ” fi rst, followed by Scottish, English, and Irish. The American section fi lled
480 pages in double - column small type, beginning with “ The Maypole of Merry-
mount
”
in 1625. Washington Irving has two pieces. William Cox
’
s wonderfully
82
David E. E. Sloane
modern “ Steam, ” with its parody steam men living on the high pressure principle, is
included (rpt. in Sloane,
LHUNE 63 – 9), along with Asa Greene ’ s “ Peter Funk, ”
showing up a crooked auction. George P. Morris ’ s “ The Stage Competitors; or, a Tale
of the Road
”
(
LHUNE
92
–
101) made the contest for passengers between
“
The
Monopoly ” and “ The People ’ s Line ” into raucous slapstick. The list is far more exten-
sive than these brief mentions suggest.
Some of Burton
’
s discoveries look forward to others later on. George P.
Burnham ’ s “ He Wanted to See the Animal ” (272 – 3) is a sort of Yankee version of
Twain
’
s
“
The Dandy Frightening the Squatter.
”
Replace the steamboat with the
Boston printing offi ce of Littell ’ s Living Age on Tremont Street, replace the steamboat
admirers with an urban crowd including a rowdy wag or two, and set the country
greenhorn against an urban clerk. In this case, the fi ght is between the Greenhorn,
who thinks the “ Age ” is an animal and he needs to pay 25 cents to see it, like the
elephant he had seen yesterday, and common sense, as no one can fi gure out what the
rube wants. Finally, the wags tie fi recrackers to his shirt - tails which start exploding
as another wag inside the building screams, “ Look out! The crittur ’ s loose! ” The up -
country greenhorn is last seen streaking across Boston Common and into his seat on
a train, whistling out the window for the engine to “ hurry it on. ” Action, dialect,
attitude, and setting are all American and all - American. The theme levels society, the
dialect localizes and regionalizes, the action is exaggerated slapstick, and the charac-
ters are pure American wise - guys, city folks, and rubes all mixed together.
Joseph C. Neal of Philadelphia, short - lived, but a clever and observant student of
Philadelphia urban low - lifes, fi gures prominently in many of the earlier anthologies.
His stories seem to invent the urban vulgar character. Peter Brush is typical of the
series of “ City Worthies ” Neal created. Before being hauled off by the night watch,
he soliloquizes:
A long time ago, my ma used to put on her specs and say, “ Peter, my son, put not your
trust in princes; ” and from that day to this I haven ’ t done anything of the kind, because
none on ’ em ever wanted to borry nothing of me. … [but], I can ’ t get no offi ce. Republics
is ongrateful! … I only wanted to be took care of, and have nothing to do but to take
care of the public, and I ’ ve only got half - nothing to do! Being took care of was the main
thing. … This is the way old sojers is served. (rpt. in LHUNE 72 – 3)
“ Orson Dabbs, the Hittite ” is a tough who brags, “ Now, look here – look at me
well, … I ’ m a real nine foot breast of a fellow – stub twisted and made of horse - shoe
nails – the rest of me is cast iron with steel springs ” (Neal 37). Neal ’ s authorial voice
contrasted with his characters ’ reported speech, although he didn ’ t employ the “ frame ”
> of other authors. “ Fydget Fyxington, ” his most widely reprinted story, is a classic
demonstration of the down - and - outer facing winter in the city. His dialect is raw and
vulgar, his needs are so basic as to be brutish, and he gladly disrupts the upper classes,
as in the concluding Ball, which he boisterously invades (Neal 207 – 22). Confl icting
cultures create “ action ” and interest using American materials.
Mark
Twain
83
The American Renaissance featured its own more formal literary humor, rather
divorced from the descendental vulgarians by language and style, but demonstrating
that allegorical and symbolic language and more transcendental intellectual concerns
could also form the humorous story and infuse it with major themes. Hawthorne ’ s
“ The Celestial Railroad, ” and “ Feathertop ” demonstrate these capacities. Poe ’ s
“
The Man Who Was Used Up
”
went directly after military leaders running for
offi ce on the strength of their wounds. Melville ’ s “ Me and My Chimney ” is now
recognized as a clever metaphor for sexuality. Burton reprinted Hawthorne ’ s “ Mr.
Higgenbotham ’ s Catastrophe, ” Poe ’ s “ A Tale of Jerusalem, ” and Melville ’ s “ The
Lightning - Rod Man. ”
The humor of the Old Southwest has been the most researched, most analyzed, and
most reprinted of American comic short story genres. Haliburton, as noted above,
presented several of the best. Burton added more; most notable were William Tappan
Thompson, Madison Tensas, and John S. Robb, among a host of others. The signature
story of the group, as noted earlier, is Thomas Bangs Thorpe ’ s “ The Big Bear of
Arkansas, ” and the most notable venue was William Trotter Porter ’ s racing newspa-
per, The Spirit of the Times , where the rougher, more vernacular stories were welcomed.
“ The Big Bear of Arkansas ” is a frame story in which the narrator describes the unusual
speech and story of a country hunter, admittedly green among sophisticated steamboat
travelers on the Mississippi, but not so green at home in the forest and on the farm,
he tells us. He then presents his story in his own dialect. Dialect, na ï vet é , grotesque,
and somewhat bathroomy humor (he sights the bear at the last chase while his “ inex-
A Companion to the American Short Story Page 19