R. H. (Robert Henry) Newell

Born in New York City on December 13, 1836, Robert Henry Newell was an American writer and humorist who became famous under the pen name Orpheus C. Kerr. He worked in journalism, serving as literary editor of the New York Sunday Mercury until 1862, and later wrote for the New York World from 1869 to 1874.

During the Civil War, his weekly satirical pieces made him a well-known public figure. These articles were collected in The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers, a series that commented on the war, politics, and society with a comic edge. Contemporary accounts say the papers were widely read, and Newell was counted among Abraham Lincoln’s favorite humorists.

Newell also published poetry and fiction, including The Palace Beautiful and Other Poems, Smoked Glass, and The Cloven Foot, a parody connected to Charles Dickens’s unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood. He died in Brooklyn, New York, in July 1901, leaving behind a body of work that captures the tone, wit, and political mood of his era.