Richard Kendall Munkittrick

According to the New York Times, when Munkittrick was asked to give a biography, he said:

“Descended from a race of clergymen and drunkards, I am a natural born lotus eater. Would rather loaf a week than work an hour. Left school at 15 and went into the dry goods business. Remained five year,s and knew less of the mysteries of business than when I started. Then a position was secured for me on an East River steamboat. I once received a load of bran in a thundershower, and I showed my sympathy for the family of Gen. Rawlins by shipping his body to Connecticut for 50 cents–putting him through at the rate charged for a barrel of apples. Then I quit. Have been hammering a living out of writing since ’76.”

American composer Margaret Ruthven Lang set the text of Munkittrick in her song “Deserted.”

–Christie Finn