Anyone have any information about the origins of this term? Google search turns up a fair number of uses in published sources going back at least as far as Hemmingway, but I haven't been able to find any information about first use, origins of the term, etc.

Anyone have someplace to point me?

curmudgeon
1570s, of unknown origin; the suggestion, based on a misreading of a garbled note from Johnson, that it is from Fr. coeur mechant "evil heart" is not taken seriously; the first syllable may be cur "dog." Liberman says the word "must have been borrowed from Gaelic (and references muigean "disagreeable person"), with variant spelling of intensive prefix ker-. Related: Curmudgeonly.

The quickest way to have first looks at etymologies is to visit
Online Etymology: Link Good site. Good word, curmudgeon. ;~)

I think he's asking the origin of the phrase in the subject "fair country writer", Bran.

It seems to be a regionalism from Texas. I am not quite sure how to parse it: is it [fair] [country writer] or [fair country] [writer]?

I'm not sure it's not exclusively regional south or SW. Hemingway said it of McKinley Kantor, for example.

And I'm pretty sure it's [fair country] [writer] since I've found several different nouns as the final one, not just "writer" though that seems to be the most common. E.g. "fair country ball player" said of baseball player.

I think he's asking the origin of the phrase in the subject "fair country writer", Bran.

I think I went for the word that I liked best, but sure "fair country writer" is fair as well.

But, what does it mean?

I wondered that meself, Fald, and I'm thinking it means a pretty good amateur writer? as opposed to a "city" writer which one would expect to be cultured and edumacated and all that?

That would suggest that the parsing is [fair][country writer] and that other examples of "fair country X" would be parsed the same way, Curmudgeon's reading notwithstanding.

agreed.

I'm pretty sure it's [fair country] [writer] since I've found several different nouns as the final one

I'm beginning to think it's [fair] [country writer]. Neither the Dictionary of American regional English or Green's Dictionary of Slang had an entry for "fair country". I googled "country writer", and it seems to go back well into the early 19th century as a kind of writer opposed to a "city writer".

Dr. McCoy on Star Trek once referred to himself as an old country doctor; and so I thought it'd be {fair}{c.w.}.

He's dead, Jim.

Good one, eta! The actuality is sad, though. I did have a crush on him.