A man named Samuel L. Clemens traveled west with his brother, across the Great Plains, over the Rocky Mountains, and stopping in the territory of Nevada, where he got a job as a miner. That role didn't work out for him and, instead, he turned to the local newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise. He achieved some notoriety there, later writing to his mother somewhat tongue-in-cheek as having "the widest reputation" possible on the frontier. He noted, "If I were not naturally a lazy, idle, good-for-nothing vagabond," he might even make money off it. "And I am proud to say I am the most conceited ass in the Territory." Such was Clemens's humor.
In fact, some of his writing for the Enterprise was humor rather than pure journalism. Such was the case for its February 3, 1863 issue, when one of those articles by Clemens was signed, inexplicably, with a pseudonym. Though Samuel Clemens was 28 years old, some call this the birthday of "Mark Twain." The name comes from the call made by leadsmen aboard riverboats (a role Clemens held at one point), and most scholars agree this was the intended reference. However, in 1874, Clemens wrote a letter offering his own explanation. He claims that he borrowed the name from a senior boat pilot named Isaiah Sellers, who himself used the name when he wrote for the Picayune, a newspaper in New Orleans. He stopped using the name when Clemens made fun of him for it. Sellers died in 1863 and, perhaps to make amends, Clemens took it over, noting that Sellers didn't need it anymore. In fact, the story doesn't check out; Sellers was still very much alive when Clemens adopted the name "Mark Twain," and no articles under that name existed in the New Orleans paper.Another story claims that Clemens used to order two drinks at once while at the taverns out west. He would ask that both ("twain") be "marked" on his bar tab. In theory, then, he would go to the bar, hold up two fingers, and ask the bartender to "mark twain." Eugene Field himself is mostly to blame for the confusion over his birth date. He is generally presumed to have been born on September 2, 1850, though he occasionally claimed it was September 3 (both his brother and his father disagreed). Whatever the date, the future poet started his life in St. Louis, Missouri (the site of his birth is now a historic house and toy museum), though his parents were both from Vermont; his father was the lawyer who defended Dred Scott, a slave who sued for his freedom. At age 6, his mother died and he joined family in Amherst, Massachusetts. He later went to college in Illinois but completed his schooling back in Missouri, the state of his birth on September 2 (or 3), 1850.
Primarily a journalist, Field also wrote a substantial number of poems; many are either humorous or aimed at children. He often wrote of the West and he often tried to express the distinct dialect of Westerners. His popularity as a writer put him in the circle of people like Julian Hawthorne (son of Nathaniel), Edmund Clarence Stedman and Mark Twain. After Field's death, Twain was present for the unveiling of a historical marker on Field's birthplace in Missouri. Twain later was told that they may have accidentally marked the wrong house. "Never mind," he said. "It is of no real consequence whether it is his birthplace or not. A rose in any other garden will bloom as sweet." In his poem "The Poet's Metamorphosis," Field writes about a person "of lowly birth," who hopes to fly "to realms beyond these human portals" by writing "songs all the world shall keep repeating." The poem ends:
Methinks the West shall know me best,
And therefore hold my memory dearer;
For by that lake a bard shall make
My subtle, hidden meanings clearer.
So cherished, I shall never die;
Pray, therefore, spare your dolesome praises,
Your elegies, and plaintive cries,
For I shall fertilize no daisies!
*The pencil drawing above is a self-portrait in profile by Field himself.
*Recommended reading: Eugene Field and His Age
(2000) by Lewis O. Saum I have been sitting by the machine 2 1/2 hours, this afternoon, and my admiration of it towers higher than ever. There is no sort of mistake about it, it is the Big Bonanza.
So begins a letter from Samuel Clemens, written from his Hartford, Connecticut home on June 22, 1890. The machine he refers to, the "Big Bonanza," was the Paige Compositor, was an impressive piece of technology that was, by many accounts, exciting just to look at. Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) believed it would revolutionize the printing industry. Between 1880 and 1894, he invested $300,000 of his own money to support its development (equal to over $7 million today). He considered it a good investment, even though it often broke down (and, because of its many moving parts, there were many opportunities for problems). "I claim yet, as I have always claimed, that the machine's market (abroad and here together,) is today worth $150,000,000," Clemens wrote optimistically.
"This machine is totally without a rival," Clemens's letter continues. "Rivalry with it is impossible." Or so he thought. At the same time, the Linotype machine was in development. Its reliability took the Paige Compositor out of the competition — and left Clemens with serious financial problems. The collapse of the publishing house he owned with his nephew only made it worse (though it had some early success). He eventually recovered, but no thanks to his "Big Bonanza." His letter closes: "It makes me cheerful to sit by the machine," followed by an invitation to his friend to come by for a drink.
Samuel Clemens, better known by his pen name of Mark Twain, predicted his own death. His prediction was based on the astronomical phenomenon that marked his birth:
I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: "Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together."
Halley's Comet is visible from Earth every 75 or 76 years. Twain was born shortly after the comet was visible in 1835. He made the above prediction in 1909. He was right: he died of a heart attack just as Halley's Comet was again visible on April 21, 1910. He was 74 years old. He was buried in Elmira, New York; the town is preparing a re-enactment of the funeral this weekend. Much of Twain's life was marked by hardship. He lost substantial money through bad investments (printing technology, for one, and co-ownership in a failed publishing house, for another). For a time, he moved to Europe for its lower expenses and made his money as a lecturer. After about ten years, he returned to the United States — but not to his home in Hartford (today the Mark Twain House, open to the public) but to Redding, Connecticut. It was there, in the home named Stormfield, that he died a widower (his wife died the year before).
Shortly before his death, Twain donated the first books to what became the town's first public library. He asked it be named after his daughter, Jean, who had died a few months earlier. After Twain's death, businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie helped fund it.
On February 27, 1885, the publishing firm of Charles Webster and Company signed into a contract to produce their first book. The contact was with General Ulysses S. Grant, who was writing his memoirs. The unnamed partner in the company was Mark Twain, a personal admirer of the former Union Army General-turned-President. Grant was infirm but, according to contemporary sources, insisted on writing every word himself, often with the help of a stenographer (who reported Grant sometimes wrote 10,000 words in one sitting). He worked on his memoir until almost his last breath. As he was preparing it, Twain himself encouraged a man who knew he was racing against time. Grant appreciated the encouragement from the author and, in turn, Twain considered Grant a superior man, remarking, "I was as much surprised as Columbus's cook could have been to learn that Columbus wanted his opinion as to how Columbus was doing his navigating."
Within a few months, 60,000 of the yet-unwritten book were ordered. Soon, the number jumped to 100,000. And Grant kept writing until, as Twain reported, "One day he put his pencil aside and said there was nothing more to do." Grant died two days later. Orders for the book ballooned and the book was finally issued under the title Memoirs. On February 27, 1886 — exactly one year after the date on Grant's contract — a royalty check for book sales was issued to his widow, splashed with the number $200,000. It was the largest royalty check in publishing history. By the end of its print run, royalties for the book totaled nearly $450,000. The publishing house of Webster and Company, however, was doomed to perish. Other than Grant's memoirs, it only published Adventures of Huckleberry Finn before folding.
Within a few months, 60,000 of the yet-unwritten book were ordered. Soon, the number jumped to 100,000. And Grant kept writing until, as Twain reported, "One day he put his pencil aside and said there was nothing more to do." Grant died two days later. Orders for the book ballooned and the book was finally issued under the title Memoirs. On February 27, 1886 — exactly one year after the date on Grant's contract — a royalty check for book sales was issued to his widow, splashed with the number $200,000. It was the largest royalty check in publishing history. By the end of its print run, royalties for the book totaled nearly $450,000. The publishing house of Webster and Company, however, was doomed to perish. Other than Grant's memoirs, it only published Adventures of Huckleberry Finn before folding.
Charles Webster and Company released the American edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on February 18, 1885. The namesake of the company, Webster, was the nephew by marriage of the book's author, Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens). The two were also business partners: Twain and Webster were co-owners of the doomed publishing house.
Huckleberry Finn was, in fact, already in print in Canada and England when the American edition came out. It was delayed in part because of an act of vandalism. In November 1884, Webster was informed that one of the illustrations had been tampered with, making a simple picture of the character Uncle Silas very obscene, thanks to exposed genitalia (the corrected version is to the right). Some copies had already been printed. But that wasn't the first delay. Twain had struggled with the story for years (he began writing it as early as 1875), alternatively playing with it as a simple sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, or a pseudo-autobiography of Huck Finn from childhood to adulthood, and he occasionally scrapped the idea altogether (it was his friend William Dean Howells that urged him back to the project). Six years into its writing, Twain noted he was working "by fits and starts." A year later, he told his family of "a book which I have been fooling over for 7 years."
Within a month, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn had sold 40,000 copies. It was only the second book published by Charles Webster — it was also the last to be profitable. The firm struggled for years, finally closing in 1894. Even so, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn lived on, becoming a standard (if not controversial) classic in American literature, sometimes hailed as the "Great American Novel." According to a letter by James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans was published by the publishing house of Carey on February 6, 1829. Cooper admits he was a bit surprised, noting it came out "about 10 days earlier than I anticipated."
Cooper was already at work trying to find an overseas publisher in England, and even offering that publisher the opportunity to sell it to translators for publication in continental Europe. Cooper, like his contemporary (and sometime rival) Washington Irving, was concerned about book piracy thanks to the lack of international copyright. In the same letter to his potential British publisher, he notes that his earlier novel The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea "has been printed by some adventurer or other." He pleadingly asks, "Is there no way of stopping this?"
For Cooper, concern over European editions was important. The American publishing industry was in its infancy and offered little to no financial return for authors. Worse, the critical world was hard to break into; like many other American authors of the time, American audiences did not fully embrace Cooper until European audiences did so first. In fact, in this same 1826 letter, Cooper announces his plan to move to Europe, partly to take advantage of the presumed higher tastes of Europeans. He stayed for several years. Cooper's star lost some of its brilliance in later years as the author became somewhat bitter, and extremely litigious.
The enduring legacy of Cooper in general and The Last of the Mohicans specifically remains tenuous. The author has been heavily criticized by many, including James Russell Lowell. Lowell said Cooper was capable of writing only one character — Natty Bumppo, the star of many of Cooper's novels — and "all his other men-figures are clothes upon sticks." As for the women characters, Lowell calls them "sappy as maples and flat as a prairie." Edgar Poe had similar views. In his criticism veiled as handwriting analysis (the so-called "Chapter on Autography") he notes there is no distinct character to Cooper's writing and the lines he produces are crooked.
Perhaps Cooper's most well-known criticism came from Mark Twain, who referred to Cooper's various "literary offenses" in essay form. He wrote of The Deerslayer (a sequel to The Last of the Mohicans), "in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offences against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record."
Within a month, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn had sold 40,000 copies. It was only the second book published by Charles Webster — it was also the last to be profitable. The firm struggled for years, finally closing in 1894. Even so, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn lived on, becoming a standard (if not controversial) classic in American literature, sometimes hailed as the "Great American Novel." According to a letter by James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans was published by the publishing house of Carey on February 6, 1829. Cooper admits he was a bit surprised, noting it came out "about 10 days earlier than I anticipated."
Cooper was already at work trying to find an overseas publisher in England, and even offering that publisher the opportunity to sell it to translators for publication in continental Europe. Cooper, like his contemporary (and sometime rival) Washington Irving, was concerned about book piracy thanks to the lack of international copyright. In the same letter to his potential British publisher, he notes that his earlier novel The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea "has been printed by some adventurer or other." He pleadingly asks, "Is there no way of stopping this?"
For Cooper, concern over European editions was important. The American publishing industry was in its infancy and offered little to no financial return for authors. Worse, the critical world was hard to break into; like many other American authors of the time, American audiences did not fully embrace Cooper until European audiences did so first. In fact, in this same 1826 letter, Cooper announces his plan to move to Europe, partly to take advantage of the presumed higher tastes of Europeans. He stayed for several years. Cooper's star lost some of its brilliance in later years as the author became somewhat bitter, and extremely litigious.
The enduring legacy of Cooper in general and The Last of the Mohicans specifically remains tenuous. The author has been heavily criticized by many, including James Russell Lowell. Lowell said Cooper was capable of writing only one character — Natty Bumppo, the star of many of Cooper's novels — and "all his other men-figures are clothes upon sticks." As for the women characters, Lowell calls them "sappy as maples and flat as a prairie." Edgar Poe had similar views. In his criticism veiled as handwriting analysis (the so-called "Chapter on Autography") he notes there is no distinct character to Cooper's writing and the lines he produces are crooked.
Perhaps Cooper's most well-known criticism came from Mark Twain, who referred to Cooper's various "literary offenses" in essay form. He wrote of The Deerslayer (a sequel to The Last of the Mohicans), "in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offences against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record."