Background
Charles Henry Webb was born at Rouse's Point, N. Y. , the son of Nathan and Philena King (Paddock) Webb.
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County - Scholar's Choice Edition
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Charles Henry Webb
Edit ProfileEducation
He was educated in schools at Champlain, N. Y. , and Toronto.
Career
At seventeen he went to New York City to try newspaper work. As a result of reading the newly published Moby Dick, however, he soon shipped on the whaler Walter Scott out of Martha's Vineyard, and spent three and a half years in the South Seas and the Arctic. Upon his return in 1855 he rejoined his family, who had moved to Illinois, and for several years engaged in business with an elder brother at Fulton City. Early in 1859 he began contributing poems, usually humorous, to Harper's Weekly, and in 1860 obtained a position on the New York Times, for which he wrote "Minor Topics, " a column of comment. In 1861 he went to the front as a war correspondent, and was present at Bull Run and in some of the early campaigns in the Shenandoah Valley. His articles appeared sometimes over his initials and sometimes, apparently, over the pseudonym, Leo. An association struck up with another correspondent, Edmund Clarence Stedman, ripened into a lifelong friendship. From 1863 to 1866 Webb was in California, at first (1863 - 64) as a member of the staff of the San Francisco Evening Bulletin. Although in later years he vigorously and quite properly objected to being classed as a "California humorist, " nevertheless these three years were the time of his greatest literary activity and influence. He soon won leadership in the city's literary circle through his facile pen, warm personality, and ready wit, this last only enhanced by a slight impediment to his speech. He became the close friend of Bret Harte, and later of Mark Twain. All three contributed to the Californian, which Webb founded as owner and first editor in May 1864. Webb in addition contributed, usually under his pen-name of Inigo, to the Golden Era, the Sacramento Union, and the New York Times. He also wrote two comedies, Arrah-na-poke (a parody of Boucicault's Arrah-na-poque) and Our Friend from Victoria, both produced in San Francisco. Unfortunately the money which he won by writing, he lost by speculation in mines, so that in 1866 he returned to New York City little the richer. For the next few years he contributed to Harper's Monthly, the Springfield Republican, and other papers, published Liffith Lank (1866), a parody of Charles Reade's Griffith Gaunt, and St. Twel'mo, a parody of Augusta Jane Evans' St. Elmo, and more surely established his name by becoming the sponsor and publisher of Mark Twain's first book, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (1867). In 1872-73 he engaged in business as a broker and banker, but he was caught in the panic of 1873 and returned to journalism. About this time he began the "John Paul" letters for the New York Tribune, collected in 1874 as John Paul's Book. This became his best-known volume, and resulted in his being known almost as much by the pseudonym as by his own name. For several years after this time he lived abroad with his family. In 1876 he published Sea-Weed and What We Seed and Parodies: Prose and Verse. After these volumes, however, his interests turned more to vers de société (Vagrom Verses, 1889; With Lead and Line, 1901). He frequently spent his summers in Nantucket, but kept his permanent home in New York City, where he died. In his later life he was greatly interested in invention. He patented an adding machine (1868) and a cartridge-loading machine (1874). In 1893, after nearly a decade of preparatory work, manufacture of his "ribbon adder" was begun, but the financial disasters of that year wrecked the enterprise. In spite of his decided talents, Webb seems unlikely to be long remembered. His parodies could not survive the writings from which they sprang; John Paul's Book invites comparison with Mark Twain's work and suffers accordingly; his verses are clever and graceful, but fail to attain a highly poetic level.
Achievements
Works
book
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County - Scholar's Choice Edition
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County - Scholar's Choice Edition
Personality
His character, always delightful, mellowed still further with age.
Connections
On October 11, 1870, he married Elizabeth W. Shipman of Brooklyn, N. Y.
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Born
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Died
May 24, 1905 (aged 71) -
Nationality
American