Shaw, Henry W.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
Henry W. (1818-1885), an American humorist. He was born at Lanesborough, Massachusetts, April 21, 1818, and died at Monterey, California, October 14, 1885. He attended Hamilton College for a year. In 1858 he was established at Poughkeepsie as an auctioneer, in which capacity his wit made him popular. He wrote humorous articles for a local paper over the signature of Josh Billings , and later adopted a sort of phonetic spelling, the better to carry out the idea of pretended illiteracy. Toward the close of the Civil War, he began to give public lectures, consisting chiefly of homely sayings designed to raise a laugh and yet stick fast in the minds of his hearers. In 1866 he issued his first book, The Sayings of Josh Billings. It brought him reputation. His Almanac appeared yearly with a fund of homely sayings grotesquely spelled. He was a regular contributor to the columns of the New York Weekly. He continued lecturing and writing. Half of his success on the platform came from a peculiarly droll way he had of dropping homely remarks. Later volumes are Everybody's Friend, Josh Billings' Complete Works, Josh Billings' Trump Card, and Josh Billings' Spice Box. While Mr. Shaw's wit was not of the highest order, he is associated in the public mind with ideas of thrift and common sense. By British critics he is associated with Mark Twain and Artemus Ward in the production of that particular style of literature which they dub "American humor," and over which they pick their way with uncertainty much as a well bred team gets on over a newly laid corduroy road.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The facts Aiton's gave in 1910 still hold: Shaw was born at Lanesborough in 1818, sold himself as an auctioneer in Poughkeepsie, and made his name as "Josh Billings" with deliberately misspelled homely sayings until his death at Monterey in 1885. What has not held is his place beside Mark Twain. The comic misspelling that carried Billings, Artemus Ward and Petroleum V. Nasby to enormous nineteenth-century sales became almost unreadable to later audiences, and by the mid-twentieth century Shaw survived mainly in anthologies of quotations and in scholarly studies of the "literary comedians" rather than as a read author. Aiton's guess that his wit was "not of the highest order" turned out to be the verdict posterity settled on, while the Twain comparison it reports has been quietly dropped.
Written for this edition, 2026.