Life — September 29, 1887 — page 1: what you’re looking at

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# "English as She is Spoke" - Life Magazine, September 29, 1887 This satirical piece mocks a book titled "Howells' Ma" (likely referencing William Dean Howells, a prominent American author and editor). The illustration depicts what appears to be a working-class or immigrant woman speaking to well-dressed ladies, with exaggerated or improper English dialogue. The caption's quoted text—"You ought to read this book of Howells', Ma. It's so real. I never saw anything like it"—suggests the satire targets Howells' literary realism depicting "authentic" working-class speech. The joke appears to be that Howells' realistic portrayals of colloquial or non-standard English are themselves comically inauthentic or overwrought. This reflects late-19th-century literary debates about dialect writing and authenticity in American fiction.