Noting the fate of Mortimer Thomson's reputation as a humorist, Mark Twain in reviewing a volume of seventy-eight humorists in 1906 commented that Doesticks wasn't even included in the "mortuary." Yet the New York Herald, at the time of Thomson's death in 1875, noted that during the zenith of his fame he was the "king of American humorists." A fragment of his letter describing a visit to Niagara Falls in 1854 appears occasionally in anthologies. His major works, however, lie almost totally forgotten although they offer brilliant examples of the witty irony of pre-Civil War literary comedians. Perhaps Doesticks is a casualty of the Civil War and the loss of two talented wives, events which caused Thomson to lose optimism and idealism. After a productive ten years as a humorist, diminishing literary powers caused him to write little besides regular newspaper copy and letters for the remainder of his career from...