In 1858, in The Plain Dealer newspaper (Cleveland, Ohio), he published the first of the "Artemus Ward" series, which, in collected form, achieved great popularity in both America and England.

[3] Browne's companion at the Plain Dealer, George Hoyt, wrote: "his desk was a rickety table which had been whittled and gashed until it looked as if it had been the victim of lightning.

[5] Browne was also known as a member of the New York bohemian set which included leader Henry Clapp Jr., Walt Whitman, Fitz Hugh Ludlow, and actress Adah Isaacs Menken.

On November 13, 1863, Browne stood before a packed crowd at Platt's Music Hall,[6] playing the part of Artemus Ward as an illiterate rube but with "Yankee common sense.

"[1] Writer Bret Harte was in the audience that night and he described it in the Golden Era as capturing American speech: "humor that belongs to the country of boundless prairies, limitless rivers, and stupendous cataracts—that fun which overlies the surface of our national life, which is met in the stage, rail-car, canal and flat-boat, which bursts out over camp-fires and around bar-room stoves.

Legend has it that, following a stage performance there, Browne, Twain, and Dan De Quille were trekking on a (drunken) rooftop tour of Virginia City until a town constable threatened to blast all three with a shotgun loaded with rock salt.