Biography

Robert Henry Newell was an American editor, journalist, and poet. He was most popularly known under the pseudonym Orpheus C. Kerr, an American humorist best known for the "Orpheus C. Kerr papers," a commentary on the Civil War and contemporary society. The pseudonym "Orpheus C. Kerr," was supposedly a "laughable transposition of 'office seeker,' referring to the plethora of candidates attempting to obtain a political office when Lincoln became president." Newell worked for the New York Sunday Mercury and eventually became editor until 1862, when he married the famous actress Adah Isaacs Menken, at which point he left his job. Their relationship was troubled though and they were divorced in 1865, and Newell looked for jobs at the New York World, the Daily Graphic, and Hearth and Home. In 1876 he stepped away from journalism and lived the rest of his life and relative reclusion. He also published a few books during his lifetime.