author
W. C. (William Curtis) Gibson
b. 1857
A magazine editor with a sharp sense of humor, he is best remembered in print for co-authoring the lighthearted temperance spoof The Log of the Water Wagon and its sequel Extra Dry. His career also connected him with major popular magazines and literary circles in New York.
1 Audiobook
The Log of the Water Wagon; or, The Cruise of the Good Ship "Lithia"
by Bert Leston Taylor, W. C. (William Curtis) Gibson
About the author
Born in New York in 1857, William Curtis Gibson wrote under the name W. C. Gibson. Project Gutenberg lists him as the author name behind The Log of the Water Wagon, a comic work created with Bert Leston Taylor, and archive records also show the follow-up volume Extra Dry: Being Further Adventures of the Water Wagon.
Surviving archival material shows that Gibson was more than a book author. A University of Pennsylvania finding aid for Rose O'Neill's letters says he worked for Good Housekeeping and later served as art editor for Cosmopolitan magazine, suggesting a career deeply tied to publishing and illustration as well as writing.
Some reference sources also connect him with Puck and with the story behind the Gibson cocktail, though those details are less firmly documented than his published books and magazine work. Find a Grave records his lifespan as 1857 to 1935, placing him among the lively magazine writers and editors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.