barrel of monkeys

Fri May 21 05:13:04 UTC 2010

Does anyone have any links/pointers to previous research on "[more fun
than] a barrel of monkeys"? It's trivially tracked to the 1880s, with
a "student slang" glossary including it in 1895. NYT has the first
searchable citation in 1893 and there is a generally sizable cluster
in the 1880s-1890s in GB and in the 1890s in GNA. Since the search is
rather trivial ({"barrel of monkeys"}, I am not going to account for
all of it here, except for a couple of links. But I would like to
learn more about it if anyone has more info.

The Wiki entry is entirely unhelpful. There is also a post in the
archives by Albert E. Krahn that dates it back to NEW YORK DISPATCH, 4
October 1885, pg. 2, col. 6
http://bit.ly/bDNTt2

So I am not breaking any new ground here, but it's clear that the
phrase really took hold in the 1880s. Where did it come from?

The only thing that I found close is

http://bit.ly/9HGsJ2
The history of the hen fever: A humorous record By George Pickering
Burnham. Boston: 1855 [GB has 1866.]
> Among my most recently received samples, I beg especially to call the attention of fanciers, amateurs and breeders, to a ' vaggin-load of monkeys, vith their tails burned off' which I warrant will not frighten the most skittish of horses.

The same phrase pops up in

http://bit.ly/cC2pjH
Dictionary of Americanisms: A Glossary of Words and Phrases, Usually
Regarded as Peculiar to the United States. By John Russell Bartlett.
New York: 1848. p. 302

Where it is cited to the Pickwick Papers, Ch. 5.

I can't find the original edition of the Pickwick Papers, but the
phrase does show up in subsequent editions and in the Dickens
Dictionary (1872). So that particular phrase goes back to 1837.

Still, earlier

http://bit.ly/aaYFe8
Blackwood's magazine, Volume 14. Sept. 1823
The Man-of-War's-Man. p. 278
> "So it would appear," rejoined a third, shrugging up his shoulders," and the more is the pity, I say—for they both, to my mind, richly deserved it; particularly that petticoated she-hyaena, who was the 'casion of all. D—n me, but I'd shut her up with a deck load of monkeys, who'd have fondled her to death."

WorldCat lists John Howell and Michael Scott as authors, but I have no
idea if that's accurate. Harvard catalog lists no author. WorldCat and
GB gather the authorship material from a hand-written cataloguing note
in the NYPL Philadelphia-published copy (1833).

http://bit.ly/9RvBRG

It all may not be relevant, as "monkeys" here refers to deck hands.

Another "load of monkeys":

http://bit.ly/bn5TZX
The English language. 5th ed, By Robert Gordon Latham. London: 1862
CHAPTER IX. PROVINCIAL FORMS OF SPEECH AT PRESENT EXISTING. MERCIAN
GROUP. ITS NEGATIVE CHARACTER. SPECIMENS, ETC. Lincolnshire. p. 390
> "Lawd look besides there's lots o' things,
>   All striped about in shape o' donkeys;
> I wonder wots them there wi' wings,
>   See what a precious load of monkeys!"

Here "load of monkeys" is used in a similar sense, but it's not quite unpacked.

There are two additional similes involving a man "who had swallowed a
wagon-load of monkeys" (1854 and 1862).

So there are plenty of varied references for loads of monkeys having
their fun, but not "more fun than a barrel of monkeys".

VS-)

Selection of links for early "more fun than barrel of monkeys":

http://bit.ly/d7KTCc
Judge's Serial. No. 1. New York: August 1887
THE MAN WHO TALKS; OR, The Drummer on the Rail.
THE HUMOROUS ADVENTURES OF THREE MODEST DRUMMERS.
>From "JUDGE." p. 13

http://bit.ly/atVhrR
Longman's Magazine. London: December 1886
Edged Tools. A TALE IN TWO CHAPTERS. p. 161

Same text:

http://bit.ly/9eCD8B
A Nine Men's Morrice: Stories. By Walter Herries Pollock. London: 1889
[GB tagged as 1887]
p. 273

http://bit.ly/cPUewQ
NYT. June 18, 1893. p. 8
ONE OF MULVANEY'S PETS; AN ELEPHANT LIKE THOSE MR. KIPLING TELLS ABOUT.

http://bit.ly/bAxBRK
The Inlander. A Monthly Magazine by the Students of Michigan
University Vol. 6:3. DECEMBER 1895
Student Slang. By Willard C. Gore [part II]. p. 115
> (6). Simile.
> barrel of monkeys, or bushel of monkeys, to have more fun than. To have an exceedingly jolly time.

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