Briefest Correspondence: Question Mark? Exclamation Mark!

Victor Hugo? Oscar Wilde? Anonymous?

Dear Quote Investigator: There is a popular humorous anecdote about an exchange of letters between Victor Hugo and his publisher shortly after the publication of “Les Misérables”. Each message consisted of only a single character. Are you familiar with this story? Recently, I heard a version of the tale with Oscar Wilde replacing Victor Hugo. Would you explore this topic?

Quote Investigator: The novel “Les Misérables” was published in 1862, and the earliest instance of the Hugo anecdote known to QI appeared in 1892. Details for this citation are given further below. However, the thirty year delay casts doubt on the story. The connection to Oscar Wilde appeared much later.

A similar tale about the exchange of extraordinarily concise messages was printed four decades earlier in July 1851 in the “Hampshire Advertiser” paper in Southampton, England: ¹

WORTHY OF JONATHAN.—In the briefest correspondence known, only two figures were used; the first contained a note of interrogation (?), implying “Is there any news?” The answer was a cypher (0), “None.”

After presenting the item above, a different complementary story was told about a message painted on a chimney. An acknowledgement to the “Nottingham Review” was given for both items:

This was clever; but neighbour Shuttleworth, in Nottingham market-place, beats it. He has on his chimney two large T’s, one painted black, the other green, to intimate that he sells black and green teas.—Nottingham Review.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

The same news item with the same acknowledgement appeared in a London periodical called “The Observer” about one week later. ² By August 1851 the tale had crossed the Atlantic and appeared in the “Oneida Chief” of Clinton, New York ³ followed by other newspapers such as the “The Spirit of the Times” in New York ⁴ and the “Springfield Daily Republican” of Springfield, Massachusetts. ⁵

In September 1854 the “Portland Weekly Advertiser” of Maine kept the story circulating by printing a version which roughly specified the locations of the two participants. Interestingly, the first character was an exclamation mark instead of a question mark: ⁶

But the shortest correspondence on record is the one between an American merchant in want of news and his London agent. The letter ran thus:

!

And the answer thus:

0.

Being the briefest possible intimation that there was nothing stirring.

In December 1854 the magazine “Yankee Notions” of New York printed the text given above with one modification. The exclamation mark was changed back to a question mark. ⁷

Three decades later in 1885 the tale was still being disseminated. The book “Pastime Papers” by Frederick Saunders included an instance in a chapter about “Letters and Letter-Writing”. The preceding example highlighted a humorous sentence: ⁸

Among the eccentricities of epistolary correspondence may be classed the following summing-up of a letter of friendship: “Give everybody’s love to everybody, so that nobody may be aggrieved by anybody being forgotten by somebody.”

In the briefest correspondence known, only two figures were used: the first contained a note of interrogation (?) — implying, Is there any news? The answer was a cipher (o) — None.

In 1892 the anecdote featuring Victor Hugo appeared in the “Handy-Book of Literary Curiosities” by William S. Walsh. This tale was also based on the exchange of very terse letters, but the character sent in the reply message was different: ⁹

But the shortest correspondence ever known took place between Victor Hugo and his publisher, just after the publication of “Les Misérables.” The poet, impatient to learn of the success of the book, sent off a letter which contained only the following:

?

And he received the following entirely satisfactory answer:

!

The 1981 edition of the “Guinness Book of World Records” retold the Victor Hugo story: ¹⁰

The shortest literary correspondence on record was that between Victor Marie Hugo (l802-85) and his publisher, Hurst and Blackett, in l862. The author was on holiday and anxious to know how his new novel Les Misérables was selling. He wrote “?”. The reply was ‘!’.

By 2013 another variant of the tale was circulating in which the famous wit Oscar Wilde was identified as a participant. After an unnamed book was published by Wilde he wished to know how well it was selling: ¹¹

In these pre-email days, a telegram was despatched of such simplistic perfection that it was hard to top. The missive contained a single character, a question mark.

In response, the publisher matched the brilliance of the enquiry with a return telegram, stating that sales were indeed surpassing any expectation; it too contained only one character, an exclamation mark.

In conclusion, QI conjectures that all of these tales of brief correspondence were fictional, and they were published simply to amuse readers. It is conceivable that there was a seed of truth to the 1851 story, but it would be difficult to recover this seed.

Based on current evidence, the Victor Hugo story variant first appeared implausibly late, and it was quite similar to the preexisting 1851 tale. The Oscar Wilde variant appeared even later and has no substantive support.

Update History: On June 27, 2014 the citations dated July 12, 1851 and July 20, 1851 were added.

(Great thanks to John Baker who asked about this anecdote. Baker located the 1892 citation. He also found the important “Yankee Notions” citation in 1854. Special thanks to Andrew Steinberg who located the valuable citation dated July 20, 1851. Any errors are the responsibility of QI.)