Robert Shelton Mackenzie was born June 22, 1809 in Limerick, Ireland. Mackenzie began his newspaper career editing a county journal in Hanley, Staffordsville, England.
27 Memorial Drive West, Bethlehem, PA 18015
Identifies "Saerasmid"--the author of numerous parodies of Walt Whitman in the Saturday Press--as Charles Desmarais Gardette, who was also the author of "The Fire-Fiend," a parody of Poe's "The Raven."
Posits that it was at Clapp's insistence that Gardette wrote a number of Whitman parodies for the Saturday Press in 1860, around the same time that Clapp was heavily promoting the 1860 Leaves of Grass in the pages of the Press (261).
Provides a very brief biography of Gardette, a history of his parodies of both Whitman and Poe, and evidence to identify him as "Saerasmid," the author of Whitman parodies in the Saturday Press.
Briefly mentioned in connection with Gardette's Poe hoax, "The Fire-Fiend." Also mentioned in context of the English actor William Macready, who, like Mackenzie, was also tricked into believing that "The Fire-Fiend" was actually authored by Poe himself (261).
Identifies a Whitman scrapbook in the Oscar Lion Collection of the New York Public Library ("Scrap Book 1860-1882") containing Whitman's poem "You and Me and To-Day" and an 1860 poem from the Saturday Press by Saerasmid titled "Yourn and Mine, and Any-Day" next to which Whitman wrote "Guardettes [sic] Burlesque" (260).
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Robert Shelton Mackenzie was born June 22, 1809 in Limerick, Ireland. Mackenzie began his newspaper career editing a county journal in Hanley, Staffordsville, England.
27 Memorial Drive West, Bethlehem, PA 18015