George V. (George Vere) Hobart

Born in Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia, on January 16, 1867, George V. Hobart became a Canadian-American writer whose career stretched across journalism, fiction, songs, and the theater. He is remembered especially as a humorist and as the author of more than 50 musical comedy librettos and plays.

He first won wide attention for the "Dinkelspiel" letters, a popular weekly comic column written in a German-American dialect style that helped make his name known nationally. Alongside that newspaper success, he published novels and other humorous writing, showing the same fast, playful energy that made his stage work appealing.

By the time of his death in Cumberland, Maryland, on January 31, 1926, he had been described as one of America's most popular humorists and playwrights. Today, he stands out as a lively example of turn-of-the-century popular entertainment, with a body of work that moved easily between print culture and the commercial stage.