Publishers’ Preface to the New (1898) Edition.

The present edition is of a work which has been for more than thirty years prominently before the public, and which may justly be said to have maintained a standard character. It is issued because of a demand for a BETTER EDITION than has ever been published.

In order to supply this acknowledged want, the publishers have enlarged and perfected this edition by adding some matter not heretofore published in book form.

More than one hundred thousand copies of the work have been printed. The plates had become so worn as to render it unreadable, yet the sale kept on. In preparing this new edition, many of the author’s fragmentary pieces, not contained in the old edition, have been added. The earliest of the author’s writings, published in periodicals in 1862, are included, together with many additional illustrations, which now, for the first time, make the work complete.

It is universally conceded that no country in the world has ever produced a genius like Artemus Ward. Writers of ACKNOWLEDGED GENIUS are never very numerous. He attained a great and deserved popularity, which will be lasting.

It has been observed that the wit of one generation is rarely appreciated by the next, but this is not true of Artemus Ward. There is a constant demand for his writings, for the reason that his jokes require no appendix for their elucidation. No one who speaks the English language can fail to appreciate his wonderful humor. It will always be funny. There is a fascination about it which can neither be questioned nor resisted. His particular niche in the temple of Fame will not be claimed by another. His intellect was sharp and electric. He saw the humor of anything at a glance, and his manner of relating these laughter-provoking absurdities is original and "fetching."