Twenty Years of Hus'ling

About the book

J. P. Johnston turns his working life into a succession of ventures, bargains, comic encounters, and reversals. Livestock dealing leads to restaurant work, soap, patent rights, fruit selling, telegraphy, jewelry, insurance, and still more opportunities to begin again. The recurring problem is how to obtain enough money and confidence for the next attempt after the previous one has failed. Helpful acquaintances and the narrator's ability to improvise repeatedly keep the story moving. Johnston presents these experiences as encouragement for readers discouraged by their own unsuccessful efforts, while his pleasure in tricks and narrow escapes gives the book an unruly comic texture. The memoir is therefore both a celebration of persistence and a vivid portrait of commercial life at the level of the itinerant seller and small operator.

• Persistence and failure
• Small enterprise
• Commercial improvisation

Why read it

The sheer variety of ventures makes the memoir a lively account of how a livelihood could be assembled one precarious deal at a time.

English text of the 1902 Thompson & Thomas edition