Though often omitted from modern anthologies of American humor, the work of George Derby achieved tremendous popularity in the nineteenth century. Phoenixiana (1856) was reprinted at least eleven times in the year of its publication and was enthusiastically reviewed by Eastern and Western journals alike. By 1890 the book had been reprinted some twenty-five times, once in London. Writers as varied as B. P. Shillaber and William Makepeace Thackeray called Derby America's finest humorist, and Artemus Ward is said to have been inspired to become a humorist by reading Phoenixiana. Derby was familiar to the non-literary as well as the literary. General Grant knew Derby's writing well enough to allude to Phoenixiana in a dispatch to the chief of staff in 1864. Nearly forty years later President Teddy Roosevelt remarked that he could have passed a competitive examination on Derby's book.

Because Derby did most of his writing in California, he...