When Shakespeare Employed a Typewriter

Livingston York Yourtee Hopkins was an Ohio-born pioneering cartoonist who worked for the Sydney weekly magazine The Bulletin (1880-2008). Writing humour and drawing cartoons under the name “Hop”, Hopkins contributed to The Bulletin from 1883 until he suffered a serious hand injury in an accident aboard the USS Tahiti while returning to Australia after a five-month tour of the US and Britain 1914. He remained a part-proprietor and director of The Bulletin. One his final pages appeared in the Christmas edition of The Bulletin, published on December 12, 1914, and was headed “The Author and The Typewriter”. In it, Hopkins, who had not long earlier visited Stratford-upon-Avon, imagined The Bard needing the assistance of a typist while completing The Tragedy of Julius Caesar – first performed in 1599, 115 years before the idea of a writing machine was even conceived (and no monkeys were envisaged in Hopkins’s scenario either).

Hopkins’s story read:

MR SHAKSPEARE, a celebrated dramatic author, was hard at work upon a new play entitled “Julius Caesar.” The date announced for its production was near at hand, and the author was working overtime to fulfil his contract with the  management. He had got well into the third act to the Forum scene, in fact. Mark Antony was about to mount the pulpit to preach his now celebrated funeral sermon over the remains of his friend Julius Caesar, when the author suddenly experienced symptoms of a nervous breakdown. The symptoms declared themselves in the form of writer’s cramp, failing eyesight, pains in the head, spots before the eyes, palpitation, vertigo, bad dreams, and all the rest of it. The alarmed author consulted a nerve specialist, who overhauled him and ordered a complete rest, a long sea voyage, and at once. “And,” added the specialist, “you must also give up whisky and tobacco and any other pleasant little vices you may be attached to.”  “Can’t get away just now,” said the dramatist. “Must finish my tragedy. Penalty clause in the contract.” 

“Well, then, why not dictate your stuff to an amanuensis? If you go on as you are, you will be blind in no time, and your hand will be permanently crippled.” 

So our author advertised for a typist who must also be an expert stenographer. She came with a certificate of high efficiency from a local business college; a fluffy-haired blonde with eyes like a startled fawn. She was engaged at first sight, and proceeded at once to “take down” Mark Antony’s harangue to the Roman mob, at the dictation of the Bard of Avon. Now drowsiness is one of the stigmata of a nervous breakdown. At the end of Antony’s long-winded speech the author fell asleep, having first given his amanuensis a lethargic injunction to typewrite her shorthand notes, and hand them to the printer, who was shrieking out for copy. 

Next morning the printer sent in a galley-proof of  the oration. 

Here it is : 

Ant. :  Fiends, rum ’uns, up-country people, lend me your  cars 

I came to bully Siezer, not to please him. 

The anvil that mend to look after the 

Goods is often tarred with her bones. 

So let it be. With scissors' the nobby brute 

Hath told you, Kaiser was amphibious: 

If it wears so it was a greasy salt. 

And greasily hath Snoozer Hansarded it.  

Here under the leaves let the brute take a rest, 

(For Asbestos is a huggermugger man — 

So are they all tall hubble-bubble men.) 

Come I to squeak and sneeze at Snoozer’s funeral. 

He was a find; a hatful of dust to me, 

But Brute he says he was Suspicious, 

And Booth he is a hobble-skirted man. 

He hath brought many captains home to roam 

Whose rams’ sons did the General’s coffee spill! 

Died thus at sea, sir — Seems Suspicious. 

When the poor have lied, Louisa hath swept. 

Ablutions should be made of steamer’s duff ; 

Yet Bulltoad swears he was religious ! Huh! 

You all did see that on the lump-o’-coal 

Three times I offered him a half a crown 

Which twice he did refuse. Was this nutrition ? 

Yet Bluenose says he litigious, 

And sure he is a rumble tumble man. 

Beer for me. 

My hat is in the cottage there with Susan, 

And I must pause till Susan sends it back, 

Or go home barefooted.... 

Ist Cit. : Methinks there is much reason in his sayings. 

Perhaps there was, but the printer didn’t trouble his head about that. He merely followed copy from the typewritten MS. and sent in his galley-proof as  above. 

Shakspeare swore a good deal and finished Julius Caesar by hand, in spite of medical advice. Ann Hathaway gave the fawn-eyed girl a regular job to wash her cottage windows and show sightseers over Shakspeare’s birthplace and things. 

The printer above referred to started a dramatic newspaper called the Stratford Barnstormer, and married the fluffy-haired one (there must be some heart interest in a short story nowadays), who gave Ann Hathaway a week’s notice. She contributed a series of articles entitled “Great Men I Have Washed Windows For.” 

For those not entirely familiar with Mark Antony’s speech in Act III, Scene II of Julius Caesar, here it is:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–

For Brutus is an honourable man;

So are they all, all honourable men–

Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:

But Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

You all did see that on the Lupercal

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And, sure, he is an honourable man.

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,

But here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once, not without cause:

What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,

And I must pause till it come back to me.

Livingston Hopkins was born, the 13th of 14 children, on July 7, 1846, at Bellefontaine, Ohio, 112 miles northeast of Cincinnati. At 17 he left a clerkship to join the 130th Ohio Volunteer Regiment, which was reviewed in Washington by President Abraham Lincoln before it saw service near Petersburg, Virginia, in the summer of 1864. Hopkins, however, spent most of his time picketing the lines and relieving his boredom by drawing. Mustered out in September 1864, he took a job as a railroad messenger, worked on newspapers in Ohio (Toledo Blade) and Illinois and in 1870 moved to New York. By then a freelance “Designer on Wood”, he contributed to newspapers and comic magazines, and illustrated books. In 1876 A Comic History of the United States, which he wrote and copiously illustrated, was published. Hopkins worked for the New York Daily Graphic, the city's first illustrated newspaper, and his September 11, 1875, strip “Professor Tigwissel's Burglar Alarm”, with 17 successive pictures that filled a full page, was the first newspaper cartoon strip. Hopkins additionally worked for  Scribner's Weekly and Puck Magazine before joining James Wales at The Judge in 1881. His work also appeared in St Nicholas Magazine, and for the Harper publications, the Weekly, the Magazine, the Bazaar and Young People. As well, he was commissioned to illustrate editions of Don Quixote, Gulliver's Travels, Baron Munchausen, and Knickerbocker's History of New York.

Hopkins arrived in Australia in February 1883, becoming the most popular of the Bulletin’s string of great cartoonists. In 1904 he published a selection of his work, On the Hop. Hopkins died at Mosman on August 21, 1927, aged 81, leaving an estate valued at more than £44,000.