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Josh Billings, pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw, (born April 21, 1818, Lanesboro, Mass., U.S.—died Oct. 14, 1885, Monterey, Calif.), American humorist whose philosophical comments in plain language were widely popular after the American Civil War through his newspaper pieces, books, and comic lectures. He employed the misspellings, fractured grammar, and hopeless logic then current among comic writers who assumed the role of cracker-barrel philosophers. His special contributions were his rustic aphorisms (“The biggest phool in this world haint bin born yet; thare iz plenty ov time yet”) and his droll delineations of animal life.

(From left) Josh Billings, Mark Twain, and Petroleum V. Nasby, 1868.

Expelled from Hamilton College, Clinton, N.Y., in his second year for removing the clapper from the chapel bell, he drifted about for some years in the West and Midwest before settling in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., in 1858 as an auctioneer and land dealer. He began writing when he was 45, but he became successful only when he adopted the misspelling vogue. His “Essa on the Muel” made him suddenly famous, and after joining the New York Weekly in 1867 he became a national idol. Some of his best work is in a 10-year series of Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Allminax he started in 1869 as a burlesque of The Old Farmer’s Almanac. His other books were hasty collections of his newspaper writings, the most comprehensive being Everybody’s Friend (1874).

Courtesy- This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.
- Josh Billing

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