Billings, Josh (1818-1885), was the pen name of Henry Wheeler Shaw, a popular American humorist. Billings specialized in humorous essays and aphorisms, which are short, clever statements of general truths. Billings expressed his humor in deliberately misspelled words and ungrammatical sentences, a technique popular among humorists of the time. However, Billings’s language and images are fresh, original, and picturesque.
Billings was born on April 21, 1818, in Lanesborough, Massachusetts. For 18 years, he wrote humorous columns for the New York Weekly newspaper. He made many speaking tours in the United States and Canada. He died on Oct. 14, 1885.
