The Complete Works of Artemus Ward

In Short

This work captures the final, celebrated lecture series of a legendary American humorist. It serves as a transcript of a traveling "panorama" show, where the speaker presents crude illustrations of Utah, California, and the Rocky Mountains while weaving in anecdotes, non sequiturs, and sharp social commentary. It has endured because it perfectly preserves a specific, vanishing style of performance art—one that relies entirely on the contrast between the speaker’s profound, melancholy gravity and the absurdity of the claims he makes with a straight face.

The Story

The narrative begins with the showman stepping onto a London stage, dressed in formal evening attire, to welcome his audience to his "little picture-shop." He establishes his persona immediately: he is a man of modest means, traveling to see the world, displaying his clothes, and attempting to raise enough money to reach New Zealand. He admits freely that he is no artist and that his panorama—a series of painted scenes meant to illustrate his travels—is largely composed of "works of art" that he claims are so poorly painted they only serve to highlight his own dry wit.

As the curtain rises and falls on various panels, the lecturer guides the audience from the coast of California through the silver mines of Nevada and across the desolate plains toward Salt Lake City. Along the way, he stops to remark on the peculiarities of the people he meets, from the "silver-voiced" young men who sing under his window to the hotel landlord who provided a bag of oats for a pillow. The center of the narrative, however, is the time spent in Utah among the Mormons.

He describes the landscape with mock-seriousness, presenting "petroleum" paintings of the scenery and offering a report on the Mormon community that oscillates between genuine observation and absurd exaggeration. He discusses the administrative power of Brigham Young, the structure of the Mormon Church, and the complex reality of polygamy with a tone that is simultaneously detached and biting. He recounts his own close calls, such as the time he nearly became the husband of seventeen widows in a leap-year mishap, or his encounter with a Sioux chief who expected him to eat "raw dog" to prove his courage.

The journey continues through Echo Canyon and over the Rocky Mountains, with the lecturer punctuating the visual tour with stories of his own failures as an actor and the tragic, comic ends of various acquaintances. He uses the visual aids—which he often manipulates with a riding-whip or an umbrella—to frame his commentary on American life and the strange, sprawling geography of the frontier. The lecture concludes with a final look at Brigham Young surrounded by his large family, a moment the speaker uses to muse on the future of Mormonism. The performance ends abruptly, as the lecturer’s declining health forces him to leave the stage for the final time. The record closes with the program notes, which serve as a final, ironic testament to the showman’s commitment to his craft, listing an elaborate "official bureau" of assistants and promising the audience that the lecturer will be happy to explain any jokes they failed to understand.

How It Unfolds

The opening invitation The lecturer introduces his show with an air of apology and formal politeness, welcoming the audience to his shop while admitting his lack of artistic talent. He establishes the rules of his theater, playfully suggesting that dissatisfied patrons can find him in New Zealand for a refund.

The Western travels He leads the audience through the Pacific coast, San Francisco, and the silver regions of Washoe, framing each locale with exaggerated descriptions of the wealth and eccentricity of the inhabitants. He uses the visual panels to transition between these geographic waypoints, often mocking the quality of the paintings themselves.

The Mormon report The core of the lecture focuses on his time in Utah, where he balances descriptive facts about Brigham Young’s administrative success with jokes about the sheer number of wives in the community. He treats the "strange city in the desert" as an ethnographic study, albeit one filtered through his own cynical, deadpan perspective.

The crossing of the plains The journey eastward through Echo Canyon and the Rocky Mountains brings tales of Indian encounters and the hardships of travel by mail coach. He uses these stories to highlight the vastness of the American landscape and the absurdity of his own experiences within it.

The abrupt conclusion The narrative culminates in a final reflection on the sustainability of the Mormon faith, followed by the sudden, unplanned end of the performance. The included program materials provide a humorous, bureaucratic postscript that rounds out the reader's understanding of how the show was organized.

The People

Artemus Ward, the lecturer, is the central figure, though he remains an enigma. He presents himself as a refined, slightly weary gentleman whose "slim physique and delicate white hands" belie the rugged travels he describes. He is constantly seeking to distance himself from his own jokes, maintaining a solemn, almost melancholy demeanor even when describing the most ridiculous situations.

Brigham Young appears as the antagonist-authority figure, a "bold, bad man" whom the lecturer respects for his immense administrative ability despite his moral opposition to the practice of polygamy. He is depicted as a man of great wealth and influence, living in a state of "dreadful" domesticity that the narrator finds simultaneously impressive and tragic.

Heber C. Kimball, the vice-president of the church, serves as a source of dark comedy, particularly through the narrator's retelling of his son’s unfortunate and melodramatic death. Other figures, such as the "seventeen widows," the Sioux chief Wocky-bocky, and the various hotel landlords, appear as fleeting, colorful foils, each helping to underscore the lecturer’s sense of detachment from the world he travels through.

In Its Own Voice

"I don't expect to do great things here--but I have thought that if I could make money enough to by me a passage to New Zealand I should feel that I had not lived in vain."

The narrator sets the tone early by stating his modest, slightly pathetic ambitions for his lecture tour.

"I was fearfully wasted.--My face was hewn down to nothing--and my nose was so sharp I didn't dare to stick it into other people's business--for fear it would stay there."

He describes the physical toll of his illness in Utah with characteristic, self-deprecating flair.

"He loves not wisely--but two hundred well."

He summarizes the domestic complexity of Brigham Young’s life with a quick, dry play on Shakespeare.

What It's Really About

At its heart, the book is a study in the power of the unreliable, deadpan narrator to shape reality. By keeping a straight face while describing the most absurd situations, the speaker forces the reader to question the boundary between fact and performance. The book also functions as a critique of the American frontier experience, stripping away the romanticism often associated with the West and replacing it with the realities of isolation, hardship, and, ultimately, the sheer strangeness of human settlement. It raises questions about the nature of authority and community, using the Mormon experiment as a prism through which to view the moral and practical contradictions of a growing, restless nation.

Why Read It Today

Readers who appreciate the roots of American satire—specifically the deadpan delivery later perfected by figures like Mark Twain—will find this a rewarding, if challenging, experience. It feels like a direct window into a vanished era of stage entertainment, where the intimacy of the lecturer’s voice is the most important element.

However, the reader should be prepared for the hurdles of 19th-century prose. The humor relies heavily on the rhythm of the spoken word, which requires patience to grasp in print. The text also contains period-specific attitudes toward indigenous peoples and minority groups that are presented through the lens of a 1860s traveler; these sections reflect the cultural biases of the time and can be jarring for a modern audience. Despite these difficulties, the book remains a fascinating artifact. The rhythm of the sentences, the calculated pauses, and the brilliant absurdity of the narrator’s "panorama" stay with you long after the curtain falls. It is a work for those interested in how language and performance can turn the mundane, the tragic, and the bizarre into a coherent—and deeply funny—worldview.