R. H. (Robert Henry) Newell

Born in New York City in 1836, Robert Henry Newell became a journalist, humorist, poet, and novelist. He worked on the editorial staffs of several New York publications, including the New York Sunday Mercury, the New York World, and later Hearth and Home.

He is remembered chiefly for the satirical pieces he published under the pen name Orpheus C. Kerr, a playful joke on the phrase “office seeker.” During the American Civil War, those articles appeared in the Sunday Mercury and were later gathered in The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers, which made him widely known for blending comedy with commentary on war and society.

Newell died in Brooklyn in 1901. Though less famous now than some of his contemporaries, he remains an interesting figure in American literary journalism: a writer who used humor to make current events feel immediate, human, and entertaining.