Burdette, Robert J

Autograph Letter, Signed, [with] manuscript of two humorous observations ("Hawkeyetems"); to Charles Bowen

      Ardmore, PA, sept 3 (n.y.). (HUMOR) 7-1/2 x 4-3/4 and 5 x 6 inches. . The manuscript mounted to a backing sheet, and the letter pinned to the manuscript; both near fine. Kunitz and Haycraft, American Authors 1600-1900, p. 118 . Robert Jones Burdette (1844-1914), humorist and clergyman, was born in Pennsylvania and grew up in the auspiciously-named town of Cumminsville, Ohio. He served in the Civil War, taught school in Illinois, worked as a railway clerk, and studied languages and art in New York City. He eventually became associated with the Burlington, Iowa, Daily Hawk-Eye, and built up a nation-wide circulation with his column "Hawkeyetems of Roaming Robert". He became a famous lecturer and, in the heyday of public lectures, delivered his recitation "The Rise and Fall of the Moustache" over five thousand times. In 1888 he became a Baptist minister, travelling throughout the U.S., and was noted for his enthusiastic oratory. Notes Kunitz and Haycraft, "Running through his humor was a personal philosophy which won him the phrase 'physician of the merry heart'. Burdette achieved great fame in his day and occupies a small but permanent place in the annals of American humor." In his letter to Bowen, Burdette states that he is willing to lecture for him, but arrangements have to be made with his speaker's bureau, which controls his schedule. "But I will see what I can do for a date, and will make terms to please you.". One of his two attached Hawkeyetems derives its humor from an unpronouncable New Hampshire lake; the other goes: "John Milton only got $25 for the manuscript and copyright of 'Paradise Lost'. Just because he listened to the advice of a few dismal old dry-as-dust duffers and cut out all the jokes."