Lying for Fun and Profit

The Sazerack

Lying Club

In this light-hearted story, Nell Trustmon talks about the Sazerack Lying Club, an invention of newspaper editor Fred D. Hart. His 1878 book outsold all of Mark Twain’s.

“This purports to be a book on lies and lying, but it does not treat of the lies of politicians, stock-brokers, newspaper men, authors, and others, who lie for money; neither does it touch on the untruths of scandal, mischief, or malice, but only on those lies which amuse, instruct and elevate, without harm. It is a record of lies told in a club known as the Sazerac Lying Club, whose objects, as its name implies, are lying. A chapter is devoted to the rise, progress, and history of this club, interspersed with these lies. The book contains a number of sketches of odd characters in Nevada, and local narratives of life in Austin, written by the Author, and published from time to time in the columns of the AUSTIN REVEILLE, of which paper the writer has for several years been editor, and which have been clipped from the files of that journal, and made to do service in padding out this book to a sellable size.”

“In the days of the Father of this Country, if we are to believe a little tale about an adventure in connection with a particular cherry tree, lying was looked upon as wrong.

But that was before the time of the steam engine, the electric telegraph, daily newspapers, stocks and stock-brokers, and other modern improvements.

Today, to lie, and lie well, is meritorious, and besides, there’s money in it, which of itself is sufficient to make it commendable.”

~Newspaper editor – Fred D. Hart~

Austin, Nevada, 1878