Antedating of "The Late Unpleasantness"

[Fred Shapiro]

late unpleasantness (OED, s.v. unpleasantness, 1868)

1867 _Nation_ 17 Oct. 307  There is an outbreak of this sort of fun just
now in the Democratic papers, which were always quite good at it, and we
believe the press of that party has not been so cheerful since some years
before the late unpleasantness.

Fred Shapiro


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------