David Ross Locke

David Ross Locke was an American newspaper editor and political satirist who wrote through the comic persona Petroleum V. Nasby. Swingin Round the Cirkle collects Nasby letters addressed to the public press during 1866, turning deliberate misspelling, dialect, sermons, and dreams into attacks on the politics of Reconstruction. Project Gutenberg identifies Locke as author, expands the subtitle, and credits Thomas Nast as illustrator. Google Books describes the 1873 Lee and Shepard volume as campaign literature and shows chapters responding to elections, conventions, President Andrew Johnson's speaking tour, and the Freedmen's Bureau. Locke's fictional speaker is not a neutral narrator; Nasby's prejudices and self-interest are exposed through irony, allowing the satire to criticize positions the character claims to defend. Swingin Round the Cirkle consequently belongs to both journalism and literary humor. Modern readers encounter a sharply partisan artifact whose historical language can be disturbing, but whose form demonstrates how David Ross Locke used a recurring voice to challenge public power.