Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber (July 12, 1814 – November 25, 1890) was an American printer, editor, and humorist. He often wrote under the guise of his fictional character Mrs. Partington.

Biography

Shillaber was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1814 and began work in a printing office in 1830. He moved to Boston in the 1830s, and then became an editor with the ''Boston Daily Post'' and ''Saturday Evening Gazette''. For the ''Post'', Shillaber introduced his character Mrs. Ruth Partington, the American version of Mrs. Malaprop, which he would reuse frequently throughout his career. In 1851, Shillaber became the founding editor of ''The Carpet-Bag'' with his business partner

Charles G. Halpine Charles Graham Halpine (Halpin) (pseud. Miles O'Reilly) (20 November 1829 – 3 August 1868) was an Irish journalist, author and soldier during the American Civil War. Early life and family Born at Oldcastle, County Meath, on 20 November 1829. H ...

. The Boston-based humor magazine was one of the country's first comic publications. Though it would only survive for two years, it soon earned a national reputation and enticed contributions from humorist like George Derby and others, as well as serious writers who used pseudonyms like Enoch Fitzwhistle, Peter Snooks, and John P. Squibob. The May 1, 1852, issue ran a short article titled "The Dandy Frightening the Squatter" by a 16-year old Samuel L. Clemens, later known by the name Mark Twain. Shillaber's character of Ike Partington, Mrs. Partington's nephew, may have influenced Twain's title character in ''

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' is an 1876 novel by Mark Twain about a boy growing up along the Mississippi River. It is set in the 1840s in the town of St. Petersburg, which is based on Hannibal, Missouri, where Twain lived as a boy. In the no ...

''. Twain more explicitly refers to Mrs. Partington in his book ''

Roughing It ''Roughing It'' is a book of semi-autobiographical travel literature by Mark Twain. It was written in 1870–71 and published in 1872, as a prequel to his first travel book ''The Innocents Abroad'' (1869). ''Roughing It'' is dedicated to Twa ...

''.Rasmussen, R. Kent. ''Critical Companion to Mark Twain: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work''. New York, NY: Infobase Publishing, 2007: 879. He died in Chelsea, Massachusetts.

Works

* ''Rhymes With Reason and Without'' (1854) * ''Life and Sayings of Mrs. Partington'' (1854) * ''Knitting-Work: A Web of Many Textures, Wrought by Ruth Partington'' (1859) * ''Partingtonian Patchwork'' (1873) * ''Ike and his Friends'' (1879) * ''Wide-swath, Embracing Lines in Pleasant Places: And Other Rhymes Wise and Otherwise'' (1882)

References

External links

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Shillaber's Ike and Tom Sawyer
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from ''The Cambridge History of English and American Literature'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Shillaber, Benjamin Penhallow 1814 births 1890 deaths American humorists Writers from Portsmouth, New Hampshire Writers from Boston American male writers