Although Browne is not widely read today, his position in American literary history is assured as a major link between the humor of the emerging nation, heavily regional and unpolished, and a more cosmopolitan, more sophisticated mode of humor which began to earn national and then international prestige.
Browne, who embellished his name with the final e in 1861 to signal his acceptance (and the acceptance of his art) in polite circles, was born in Waterford, Oxford County, Maine, a quiet and provincial village in one of the most conservative regions of New England. His father, Levi Brown, was sufficiently respected in the community to serve as constable, tax collector, selectman, and town clerk, and his maternal grandfather, Calvin Farrar, had represented his district in the Vermont State Legislature from 1811 to 1816. Such a background was comfortable and respectable if hardly genteel, but when Charles's father died, the youth, at thirteen, was obliged to take up residence with the Rix family in Lancaster, New Hampshire, to learn printing from John Rix, publisher of the Weekly Democrat.
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