File:Oliver Brooke Herford (1863-1935) obituary in the Daily News of New York City, New York on July 6, 1935.jpg

Oliver Herford. Oliver Herford, 72, known in the Gay Nineties as the First Wit of his time, died at his home at 142 East 18th Street, yesterday, leaving a heritage of quips which are still quoted. He was famous as a poet, dramatist and cartoonist. Death came in the tiny apartment where he had lived for The late thirty years Oliver Herford from which he journeyed daily to the Players Club in Gramercy Park. His wife was seriously ill yesterday. The story that Woodrow Wilson once used in a state paper was Herford's. It had to do with a back-slapping boor, who blustered: "You remember me." "I don't recall your name," Herford responded, "but your manners are familiar." Herford often jibed at death. In his heyday, he once strolled into the Players' Club and looked over the mourning cards on the bulletin board. He turned away after scanning them, muttering: "Never the right ones." His wife was the object of many of his jokes. Once taxed by a friend about his faded hat, he replied that he wore it because it was "a whim of Peggy's." "Do you have to yield to that extent to her whims?" he was asked. "You don't know her." he replied. "She has a whim of iron." Herford was born in England, the son of a Unitarian clergyman. He came to America in his teens.

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