The Complete Works of Artemus Ward

In Short

This collection documents an arduous, cross-country trek from New York to California and the Utah Territory during the 1860s. Part travelogue, part comedic performance, it records the author’s encounters with stagecoach drivers, gold miners, and Mormon society. By blending sharp social observation with deliberate, deadpan nonsense, the work serves as a foundational text for American humor. It has endured because it avoids sentimentalizing the frontier, choosing instead to find the ridiculous in the sublime and the human in the harsh realities of a rapidly expanding, often chaotic, young nation.

The Story

The journey begins at a frantic pace on the steamer Ariel, where the author navigates a chaotic boarding process marked by lost luggage and mistaken identities. This sets a tone of lighthearted bewilderment that follows him as he crosses the Isthmus of Panama. Here, the landscape is beautiful but treacherous, prone to "fevers and other unpleasant disorders," and the local population is depicted with a mix of weary indulgence and transactional suspicion. The narrative moves to Mexico, where the author meets educated countrymen who possess a disarming tendency to give away their own clothing if complimented, highlighting a cultural disconnect that he navigates with a polite, if bewildered, grace.

Upon arriving in San Francisco, the author finds a city that treats the Sabbath with "jollity," filling its theaters and circuses with an energy that he finds both amusing and exhausting. He eventually ventures toward the silver mines of Washoe, where the sheer scale of the wealth—carried away in bricks by mule teams—seems to drive visitors to fits of madness. The narrative is punctuated by encounters with local "gentlemen" who are as likely to settle disputes with horse-pistols as with words. The author’s experiences are defined by this proximity to violence, which he manages through a mix of self-deprecating humor and an almost surreal detachment.

The longest, most focused arc of the journey takes him to the Utah Territory. Here, he explores the social and religious structures of the Mormon community. He provides a detailed, if skeptical, account of the theatrical life in Salt Lake City, the communal dances, and the peculiar domestic arrangements of the polygamist households. He secures an audience with Brigham Young, whom he describes as a man of shrewd executive ability, balancing a genuine curiosity about the leader’s power with a persistent, mocking disbelief regarding the domestic lives of the residents.

The journey concludes as he traverses the desolate stretches of the Rocky Mountains. The physical toll of the trip—the freezing cold, the broken stagecoaches, and his own brush with "mountain fever"—strips away the artifice of his public persona, leaving him thin, sharp-nosed, and perpetually ready to offer a dry remark. The narrative ends not with a grand epiphany, but with a return to the road, having surveyed a wide, rugged, and deeply eccentric cross-section of the American experience.

How It Unfolds

The voyage begins The author leaves New York amidst the clamor and confusion of a crowded steamer, establishing the theme of the traveler as a bemused outsider. He navigates the humidity and hazards of the Isthmus of Panama, where local inhabitants and transient travelers clash over logistics and comfort.

The Pacific coast experience Upon reaching San Francisco, he encounters a vibrant, secular, and often surreal urban culture that contrasts sharply with his expectations. He ventures into the mining camps, where he observes the frantic, often violent pursuit of silver and the strange, performative social codes of the frontier.

The stagecoach odyssey He embarks on a grueling Overland journey, marked by terrifying mountain passes and anecdotes from drivers who view passenger safety with alarming negligence. These middle chapters emphasize the physical fragility of the traveler against the indifference of the western landscape.

The Mormon encounter In Salt Lake City, the narrative shifts from travelogue to social critique as he investigates the daily lives, religious laws, and theatrical pursuits of the Mormons. He captures the eccentricity of this isolated society, focusing on the tension between their rigid internal order and the author’s own Gentile perspective.

The final stretch After surviving a bout of debilitating illness, he completes his tour through the mountain territories. He departs with a seasoned, if weary, understanding of the country’s vastness and the bizarre humanity he encountered along the way.

The People

The author serves as the central figure, a wry, observant lecturer who navigates the frontier with a "glaring eye" for detail but a resolute refusal to be impressed. His primary foil is the environment itself, along with the cast of characters he meets. Among these is the nameless, intoxicated native of the Isthmus, whose tattered clothes and persistent solicitations represent the grit of the path. Then there is the "celebrated editor" Horace Greeley, whose legendary, uncomfortable ride to Placerville serves as a comedic anchor, illustrating the absurdity of celebrity in a land that cares little for reputation.

Brigham Young emerges as the most formidable figure. The author presents him as a man of immense executive power, yet he views him through a lens of pragmatic skepticism, constantly measuring the leader’s influence against the daily, mundane realities of his followers. Finally, the various "gentlemen" of the mining camps—men who admit to killing others yet insist on their status as gentlemen—provide the narrative with its most jarring, dark-humored encounters. These figures represent the volatile, lawless side of the West, acting as a constant, dangerous backdrop to the author’s attempt to maintain a civilized, literary distance.

In Its Own Voice

"I am one of them. I am rushing around with a glaring eye in search of a box."

The author describes his frantic search for luggage amidst the chaotic boarding of a steamer.

"The Chinese play is 'continued,' like a Ledger story, from night to night."

He remarks on the seemingly infinite length and episodic nature of the theater he encounters in San Francisco.

"My nose was so sharp that I didn't dare stick it into other people's business for fear it would stay there."

Recovering from a severe illness in Salt Lake City, he uses his diminished physical state to punctuate his experience with self-deprecating irony.

What It's Really About

The book explores the friction between the promise of American expansion and the gritty, often absurd reality of the frontier. It asks how a society maintains order—or fails to—when removed from the centers of political and cultural control. The narrative is preoccupied with the nature of authority, whether it is the iron-fisted rule of a religious leader, the arbitrary commands of a stagecoach driver, or the desperate, violent posturing of a mining-town "gentleman." Beneath the humor lies an examination of the American character, specifically the tendency to turn every hardship, whether it be a mountain pass or a theological debate, into a stage for performance, rhetoric, or outright farce.

Why Read It Today

Readers will find a voice here that feels surprisingly modern in its skepticism and its refusal to take anything, including its own journey, entirely seriously. Those who enjoy the tradition of American humorists—such as Mark Twain—will see the clear lineage of the deadpan style and the use of the "outsider" perspective to critique society. It is an honest, often unflinching look at the West, and it does not shy away from the period’s prejudices or the harshness of the conditions described. The dialect and the eccentricities of the writing can take time to settle into, but the payoff is a singular, vivid, and deeply human portrait of a nation in flux. Reading this is akin to sitting down with an old, weary, and incredibly funny traveler who has seen things that would break a lesser person, yet chooses to tell you the most ridiculous parts. It stays with you because it captures the fundamental, chaotic, and often hilarious spirit of the American project, reminding us that even in the most desolate, dangerous, and confusing of times, there is always room to laugh at the absurdity of the human condition.