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George Horatio Derby - The Satirical Writer

From a very young age, while living in Medfield, George Horatio Derby exhibited skills as a writer, a cartoonist and a prankster. As an adult he worked in San Diego for the San Diego Herald under the pen names “Squibob” and “John Phoenix.” Derby wrote with wit and humor and later became known as America’s first satirical writer.

 

Derby’s writings, published in two nationally-known books of his time, Phoenixiana and Squibob Papers, were said to have influenced Mark Twain and many other humorists to follow. Surveyors and explorers, Army life, inventions and astronomy were among the topics he satirized.

 

The cartoons, quotes and podcasts below by George Horatio Derby are just a sampling of his published work and  celebrate his life as a writer dating back to 1855. These writings were loved then and are still enjoyed by many today.

George Horatio Derby portrait
Cartoons by George Horatio Derby
John Phoenix, Esq., The veritable Squibob
As editor of the San Diego Herald, Derby sketched himself as the diligent newspaperman. (John Phoenix, Esq., The Veritable Squibob by George R. Stewart.)
John Phoenix, Esq., The veritable Squibob
Caricature of Andrew Gray surveying the U.S. and Mexican boundary line near San Diego. (John Phoenix, Esq., The Veritable Squibob by George R. Stewart.)
John Phoenix, Esq. the veritable Squibob
Derby’s proposed design for new U.S. Army uniforms. (John Phoenix, Esq., The Veritable Squibob by George R. Stewart.)
Podcasts from the writings of George Horatio Derby

Antidote for Fleas – 1855
George Horatio Derby
(Courtesy of Creator Ron Evry/Mister Ron’s Basement)

Boston – A Moral City – 1865
George Horatio Derby
The Squibob Papers
(Courtesy of Creator Ron Evry/Mister Ron’s Basement)

Phoenix on Agriculture – 1855
George Horatio Derby
The Squibob Papers
Phoenix on Agriculture – 1855
(Courtesy of Creator Ron Evry/Mister Ron’s Basement)

Popular quotes by George Horatio Derby

A New System of English Grammar.
“Do you see how very close in this way you may approximate to the truth; and how clearly your questioner will understand what he so anxiously wishes to arrive at — your exact state of health? Let this system be adopted into our elements of grammar, our conversation, our literature, and we become at once an exact, precise, mathematical, truth-telling people. It will apply to everything but politics ; there, truth being of no account, the system is useless.‎ ” – Phœnixiana; or Sketches and burlesques, by John Phœnix [ed. by J.J. Ames]. George Horatio Derby

Lectures on Astronomy.
“…has been frequently questioned by modern philosophers. The whole subject is involved in doubt and obscurity. The only authority we have for believing that such an individual exists, and has been seen and spoken with, is a fragment of an old poem composed by an ancient Astronomer of the name of Goose, which has been handed down to us as follows: ” The man in the Moon came down too soon To inquire the way to Norwich; The man in the South, he burned his mouth, Eating cold, hot porridge.” – Phœnixiana; or Sketches and burlesques, by John Phœnix [ed. by J.J. Ames]. George Horatio Derby

Fourth of July Oration.
“Pike’s baby, now lying with a cotton-flannel shirt on, in a champagne basket, in Portland, OR, has just as good a chance of being president of the United States, as the imperial infant of France, now sucking his royal thumbs in his silver cradle at Paris, has of being an emperor.‎ ” – The Squibob Papers, by George Horatio Derby 1865