The Life of Mark Twain

by Gary Scharnhorst

  14. De Quille, “Salad Days,” 13–14. The original version of this anecdote has been lost, though it may yet be recovered as a reprinting in another paper.

  15. De Quille, “Reporting with Mark Twain,” 171; De Quille, “Salad Days,” 13–14; McEwen, “In the Heroic Days,” 15; “The Passing of a Pioneer,” San Francisco Examiner, 22 January 1893, 15.

  16. Stewart, Reminiscences, 220; MTCI, 176; AMT, 1:251–52.

  17. The Prince and the Pauper, 113; McEwen, “In the Heroic Days,” 15.

  18. RI, 306; MTL, 1:260; ET&S, 1:258; “Mark Twain’s Letter,” SFMC, 15 July 1863, 1; “Mark Twain’s Letter,” SFMC, 13 August 1863, rpt. Twainian 11 (March–April 1952): 3; Webster, Mark Twain: Business Man, 119; “Western Expansion: California,” Stamp Auction Network, http://stampauctionnetwork.com/f/f12125.cfm, item no. 487 (SLC stock certificate, Fresno Mining Company); “Nightingale Gold and Silver Mining Company,” EB, 24 December 1863, 4.

  19. Goldman, Gold Diggers and Silver Miners, 19; Smith, History of the Comstock Lode, 33; Douglass, The Coming of Age of American Business, 39; RI, 306; MTL, 1:247

  20. Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, 228; Sacramento Bee, 23 October 1862, 2; “Editor Bulletin,” SFB, 24 January 1863, 2; “The First Bible Society in Nevada Territory,” SU, 8 November 1862, 4; Mark Twain’s San Francisco, 88; Muir, “Note on Twain and Rising,” 317; MTL, 2:333; McEwen, “In the Heroic Days,” 15.

  21. ET&S, 1:183–84, 1:186; SLC to C. W. Stoddard, 10 September 1877, UCCL 01479; AMT, 2:24, 2:471; Fitch, Western Carpetbagger, 52–56.

  22. “The Petrified Man,” Galaxy 9 (June 1870): 859; Bret Harte, “To the Pliocene Skull,” in Poems, 117–20.

  23. MTL, 1:170, 1:242; SLC to Orion Clemens, 28 July 1862, UCCL 12723.

  24. “The Petrified Man,” Galaxy 9 (June 1870): 859. The exchanges no doubt arrived by ship rather than by train because the copied articles always appeared first in papers issued in the East Coast port cities of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, and only afterward in inland papers.

  25. Foner, Mark Twain: Social Critic, 27; Hohenhaus, “The ‘Petrified Man’ Returns.”

  26. DeLancey Ferguson, “The Petrified Truth,” Colophon, n.s., 2 (Winter 1937): 190; “The Petrified Man,” Galaxy 9 (June 1870): 860; MTL, 1:242; “The Petrified Man,” NCT, 18 November 1862, 2.

  27. MTL, 1:165, 1:238. In chapter 55 of Roughing It, SLC also claimed that in the evening of 3 July 1863, the day of Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the American flag atop Mt. Davidson was “glorified” by the light of the setting sun; see RI, 407. The event actually occurred the night of 30 July 1863 (Roughing It [1993], 694).

  28. Marsh, Letters from Nevada Territory, 637; ET&S, 1:334–38.

  29. AMT, 2:5; MTCI, 66; AMT, 3:658; “Letter from Nevada Territory,” SU, 12 December 1862, 2; Budd, Mark Twain: Social Philosopher, 11.

  30. “From Nevada Territory,” St. Louis Missouri Republican, 20 December 1862, 2.

  31. “Carson City Raving over the Incorporation Bill,” SFB, 22 December 1862, 1. Orion likely was an occasional Carson City correspondent for the Bulletin, contributing at least ten items to the paper under the pseudonym Nevada between December 1862 and February 1865.

  32. “Good Men Wanted,” SU, 9 March 1863, 5.

  33. Roughing It (1993), 577; “Washoe Agricultural Society,” Washoe (Nev.) Times, 11 July 1863, 2; Marsh, Letters from Nevada Territory, 655; ET&S, 1:457; “Mark Twain’s Letter,” SFMC, 15 July 1863, Twainian 11 (January–February 1952): 2–3.

  34. ET&S, 1:201–4; “The Nevada Incorporation Act Passed by Bribery and Corruption,” SFB, 31 December 1862, 3; Washoe (Nev.) Times, 10 January 1863, 2.

  35. “Mining Days Sweetheart of Mark Twain,” Twainian 15 (May–June 1956): 1–2; ET&S, 1:207–9, 1:225, 1:227–28; Williams, Mark Twain: His Life in Virginia City, 113.

  36. RI, 19; “Affairs in Nevada Territory, SU, 22 January 1864, 3; NCT, 14 July 1863, 2; “A Disloyal Judge Removed,” Washoe (Nev.) Times, 11 July 1863, 2; Fanning, Mark Twain and Orion Clemens, 84; Orion Clemens to Second Auditor of U.S. Treasury, 11 March 1863, UCLC 49531. Orion was much more racially tolerant than SLC, especially toward Indians. The natives, he wrote, “are peaceable, quiet, able and willing to learn to work like white men. They voluntarily about our town seek for work. . . . Give them a chance to work for themselves, with tools and instruction, and they will ask very little else from the Government.” See Orion Clemens to William P. Dole, 2 July 1863, UCLC 49574.

  37. Sacramento Bee, 16 May 1863, 2; ET&S, 1:476; “Will Yet Be a State,” EB, 15 April 1864, 2.

  38. “Battle of Law Officers in the Mountains,” SFB, 5 March 1863, 3; MTL, 1:247; “The California-Nevada Boundary Question,” SFB, 20 March 1863, 3; Fanning, Mark Twain and Orion Clemens, 79, 82; Roughing It (1993), 74–75.

  39. “Letter from Nevada Territory,” SU, 19 November 1862, 3; Joe Goodman to Orion Clemens, 28 January 1863, UCLC 49335; Orion Clemens to Joe Goodman, 5 February 1863, UCLC 49337; Orion Clemens to Elisha Whittlesey, 5 February 1863, UCLC 49338; Orion Clemens to R. W. Taylor, 9 July 1863, UCLC 49353; Orion Clemens to R. W. Taylor, 16 March 1864, UCLC 49366 and 49943; Orion Clemens to John Church, 29 March 1864, UCLC 49996; “At Last,” Reese River Reveille, 10 October 1863, 2.

  40. “Jos. Goodman’s Memories of Humorist’s Early Days,” San Francisco Examiner, 22 April 1910, 3; ET&S, 1:194; MTCI, 80; Henderson, Mark Twain, 42.

  41. See, e.g., “Miscellaneous,” Cincinnati Gazette, 27 November 1868, 4; “Personal,” Jamestown (N.Y.) Journal, 27 Nov 1868, 1; “Personal and Political,” Hartford Courant, 28 November 1868, 1; “A Little Bit of Everything,” New Haven Columbian Register, 19 December 1868, 4; LM, 498; MTCI, 180.

  42. “That’s What’s the Matter,” SFAC, 24 August 1864, 1; “Mark Twain,” SFDC, 14 February 1866, 3; “Mark Twain,” Sacramento Bee, 19 February 1866, 1; NCT, 22 February 1866, 2; “Mark Twain,” Mariposa (Calif.) Gazette, 3 March 1866, 1; “Mike McCluskey,” GHN, 30 October 1866, 3; EB, 2 January 1864, 3; RI, 339; “Mark Twain,” SFDC, 14 February 1866, 3; Fatout, “Mark Twain’s Nom de Plume,” 1–7; Fatout, Mark Twain in Virginia City, 35; “Letter from Carson,” VCDU, 30 January 1864, 1; Kaplan, The Singular Mark Twain, 107.

  43. MTL, 1:260, 2:357, 3:90; “Virginia at Midnight,” EB, 11 July 1863, 3; “Stars,” GHN, 26 October 1863, 3; ET&S, 1:278; Fatout, “Mark Twain’s Nom de Plume,” 1–7; Fatout, Mark Twain on the Lecture Circuit, 49; Virginia City (Nev.) Trespass, 27 April 1868.

  44. “Washoe Correspondence,” Sacramento Bee, 13 October 1863, 1; N&J, 1:189; MTL, 1:156.

  45. HF&TS, 94; RI, 399.

  46. MTL, 1:236; “Murders at Virginia City,” SFB, 14 April 1863, 2; ET&S, 1:246–47.

  47. MTL, 1:244, 6:426; Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, 216; Bellamy, Mark Twain as a Literary Artist, 90; Walker, San Francisco’s Literary Frontier, 90; ET&S, 1:248; Joe Goodman to Dan De Quille, 5 May 1863, UCLC 48717; De Quille, “Reporting with Mark Twain,” 170.

  48. Chicago Inter-Ocean, 13 February 1875, 9; MTL, 1:221; Joseph L. Coulombe, Mark Twain and the American West (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003), 93; Barnes, “Mark Twain,” SFMC, 17 April 1887, 1; McEwen, “In the Heroic Days,” 15; “Appreciated,” NCT, 23 October 1863, 2; De Quille, “Reporting with Mark Twain,” 175; Goodwin, As I Remember Them, 252–56; Clemens, Mark Twain: His Life and Work, 49–52; MTCI, 424; Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, 227; Berkove, Insider Stories, 743.

  49. “The Dangers of Advertising,” Atchison (Kans.) Freedom’s Champion, 11 April 1863, 1.

  50. RI, 419; Ludlow, The Heart of the Continent, 410; ET&S, 2:165–68; MTL, 1:255, 1:256, 1:258; ET&S, 1:250–53; Bowles, Our New West (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1865), 343; ET&S, 1:309–12; RI, 306.

  51. “Religious Intelligence,” SU, 4 July 1863, 5; Thomas Starr King to Orion Clemens, 6 July 1863, UCLC 31644; Hulse, “Thomas Starr King and the Comstock Lode,” 94. SLC and Strong attended the same church; see ET&S, 1:258.

  52. Clemens of the “
Call,” 61–62; MTCI, 202, 206–7.

  53. “Opening of the Collins House,” EB, 9 July 1863, 3; San Francisco Mining and Scientific Press, 27 July 1863, 1; “Particulars of the Recent ‘Cave’ of the Mexican and Ophir Mines,” SFB, 21 July 1863, 1; “North Ophir Gold and Silver Mining Company,” SFB, 19 October 1863, 4; AMT, 1:315.

  54. “Look Out, Mark!” EB, 14 July 1863, 2; “Mark Twain’s Letter,” SFMC, 15 July 1863, rpt. Twainian 11 (January–February 1952): 2–3; “A Surprise Spoiled,” EB, 28 July 1863, 3; Mayo, “Pudd’nhead Wilson,” Harper’s Weekly, 22 June 1895, 594; Nevada: A Guide to the Silver State, 81.

  55. “Mark Twain’s Letter,” SFMC, 6 August 1863; “Washoe Agricultural Society,” Washoe (Nev.) Times, 11 July 1863, 2; RI, 398; Mark Twain of the Enterprise, 84, 86; ET&S, 1:307.

  56. Berkove, Insider Stories, 556; “Particulars of a Terrible Tragedy,” SFAC, 24 July 1863, 1; “Frightful Occurrence,” Louisville Democrat, 2 October 1863, 1; “Frightful Occurrence,” Albany Journal, 9 October 1863, 2; “Frightful Occurrence,” Worcester (Mass.) Spy, 14 October 1863, 4.

  57. “Jos. Goodman’s Memories of Humorist’s Early Days,” San Francisco Examiner, 22 April 1910, 3; “The Passing of a Pioneer,” San Francisco Examiner, 22 January 1893, 15; HF&TS, 90–91.

  58. ET&S, 1:261. See also “Large Conflagration—Loss about $30,000,” EB, 27 July 1863, 3.

  59. ET&S, 1:270, 1:275, 1:300–301; “Departed,” EB, 11 August 1863, 1.

  60. ET&S, 1:270, 1:299; Bowles, Our New West, 66; ET&S, 1:279–83, 1:303; “Back Again,” EB, 24 August 1863, 3; Browne, “Washoe Revisited,” 693.

  61. Geismar, Mark Twain: An American Prophet, 27; Jones, “Mark Twain and Sexuality,” 610; Wecter, “Introduction,” in The Love Letters of Mark Twain, 3–4; Budd, “Mark Twain Plays the Bachelor,” 159, 163; Goldman, Gold Diggers and Silver Miners, 87; MTL, 1:145.

  62. Scott, On the Poetry of Mark Twain, 7; Sketches of the Sixties, 190.

  63. “Mark Twain,” EB, 25 July 1863, 3; RI, 395; “Mark Twain,” EB, 5 September 1863, 2; “Poor Wretch, We Pity Him,” EB, 31 October 1863, 3; ET&S, 2:172, 1:274; Artemus Ward to SLC, 1 January 1864, UCLC 31646.

  64. “What Does It Mean?,” EB, 24 July 1863, 3; “Typographical Union,” EB, 1 August 1863, 3; “Mark Twain,” EB, 25 July 1863, 3; ET&S, 1:267, 1:269.

  65. Graham, Handset Reminiscences, 151–53; “Disastrous Fire at Virginia City,” SFMC, 29 August 1863; “Particulars of the Fire in Virginia City,” SFB, 31 August 1863, 1; Smith, The History of the Comstock Lode, 35; De Quille, “Reporting with Mark Twain,” 170; Pudd’nhead Wilson, 154.

  66. “Carson City Affairs,” SFAC, 29 July 1862, 2; ET&S, 1:257; “An Affair of Honor,” EB, 1 August 1863, 3; “The Recent Affair of Honor,” EB, 10 August 1863, 1; “Mark Twain’s Letter,” SFMC, 6 August 1863, repr. ET&S 1:262; “A Duel Ruined,” SFAC, 6 August 1863, 1.

  67. “Talk of a Duel,” Stockton (Calif.) Independent, 21 September 1863, 2; Tom Peasley, “A Card,” EB, 17 September 1863, 2; “The Fitch and Goodman Duel,” Stockton (Calif.) Independent, 2 October 1863, 3; “What Means It?” VCDU, 14 January 1864, 2; “The Old Dodge of Our Treasonable Cotemporary,” VCDU, 17 January 1864, 2; “The Carson Controversy,” VCDU, 19 February 1864, 2; Beebe, Comstock Commotion, 42.

  Chapter 9

  1. Dwyer and Lingenfelter, Dan De Quille, 18; “Mark Twain,” EB, 5 September 1863, 2; RI, 419; “Quickest Trip to Virginia,” NCT, 3 May 1864, 3; Golden Era, 4 October 1863, 4; Joseph Lawrence to Dan De Quille, 23 September 1863, UCLC 48718.

  2. Groth, Living Downtown, 28; Harte, Bret Harte’s California, 88; ET&S, 2:369, 1:318.

  3. Falk, The Naked Lady, 64; Mark Twain’s San Francisco, 6; Stoddard, “La Belle Menken,” 478; Dulchinos, Pioneer of Inner Space, 191.

  4. ET&S, 1:76–80; Mark Twain of the Enterprise, 75; “Adah Isaacs Menken,” EB, 4 September 1863, 3; “The Menken,” EB, 23 January 1864, 1.

  5. “Introductory,” Galaxy 9 (May 1870): 717; N&J, 2:142; Stoddard, “La Belle Menken,” 479; Mack, Mark Twain in Nevada, 300; ET&S, 2:120. See also SLC to Stephen C. Massett, 10 October 1881, UCCL 02050.

  6. IA, 199; Linda A. Morris (Gender Play in Mark Twain, 7) more fully discusses the characters in SLC’s fiction who defy conventional or socially assigned gender roles.

  7. Goodwin, As I Remember Them, 217; “Putting on Frills,” GHN, 2 November 1863, 3; MTL, 1:310; Benson, Mark Twain’s Western Years, 73; De Quille, “Salad Days,” 13–14; “To Be Married,” GHN, 18 April 1864, 3; Dan De Quille to Lou Benjamin, 19 and 24 May 1874, UCLC 46921.

  8. “Prize Fight in Washoe Valley,” SU, 25 September 1863, 1; “Wild Human Beasts in Washoe,” SFB, 9 October 1863, 3; “The Great Prize Fight,” Golden Era, 11 October 1863, 8, rpt. Mark Twain’s San Francisco, 15–24.

  9. “My Famous ‘Bloody Massacre,’” Galaxy 9 (June 1870): 860; “How Dividends Are Cooked,” SFB, 8 September 1863, 3; SFB, 16 September 1863, 2; “Dividend Paying Companies,” SFB, 4 August 1863, 3; “From California,” Boston Transcript, 19 October 1863, 2; “My Famous ‘Bloody Massacre,’” Galaxy 9 (June 1870): 860; C. A. V. Putnam, “Dan de Quille and Mark Twain,” 3.

  10. ET&S, 1:325–26; “My Famous ‘Bloody Massacre,’” Galaxy 9 (June 1870): 861.

  11. “My Famous ‘Bloody Massacre,’” Galaxy 9 (June 1870): 860.

  12. “Horrible,” GHN, 28 October 1863, 3; “Only a Joke!,” Sacramento Bee supplement, 31 October 1863, 2; “Bloody Massacre,” SU, 30 October 1863, 1; “A Sensational Item,” EB, 28 October 1863, 3; “As We Anticipated,” EB, 31 October 1863, 3; ET&S, 1:320–21.

  13. Henderson, Mark Twain, 80–81; “That ‘Sell,’” GHN, 29 October 1863, 3; Caron, Mark Twain: Unsanctified Newspaper Reporter, 138; “A Canard,” Reese River Reveille supplement, 7 November 1863, 1; “Contradicted,” SU, 31 October 1863, 2; “The Latest Sensation,” SFB, 31 October 1863, 5; “Worse and Worse,” EB, 29 October 1863, 3; “A Peculiar Taste,” EB, 30 October 1863, 3; “Only a Joke!,” Sacramento Bee, 31 October 1863, supplement, 2; ET&S, 1:327; “My Famous ‘Bloody Massacre,’” Galaxy 9 (June 1870): 861; “A Peculiar Taste,” EB, 30 October 1863, 3; “Still Harping,” Reese River Reveille, 21 November 1863, supplement, 1; “Still Harping On,” GHN, 30 October 1863, 3.

  14. “Water,” EB, 28 October 1863, 2; “Poor Wretch, We Pity Him,” EB, 31 October 1863, 3; “Mark Twain,” GN, 2 November 1863, 3; Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, 230–31; Henderson, Mark Twain, 80–81; De Quille, “Reporting with Mark Twain,” 173.

  15. Mark Twain of the Enterprise, 290; ET&S, 1:328–30; “The Menken,” GHN, 19 November 1863, 2; Fitz Hugh Ludlow, “A Good-Bye Article,” Golden Era, 22 November 1863, 5.

  16. Orion Clemens to W. H. Jones, 29 April 1863, UCLC 49351; Mark Twain of the Enterprise 11; AMT, 2:239.

  17. “Anti-Dueling Clause,” GHN, 5 December 1863, 2; Mark Twain of the Enterprise, 14, 104; “The Constitutional Convention,” EB, 4 January 1864, 3; VCTE, 5 January 1864; Orion Clemens to Salmon P. Chase, 21 December 1863, UCLC 49605.

  18. Fatout, Mark Twain on the Lecture Circuit, 26; Marsh, Letters from Nevada Territory, 457; Lillard, “Studies in Washoe Journalism and Humor,” 83; Mark Twain of the Enterprise, 102–10.

  19. ET&S, 2:122; MTL, 1:242; Stewart, Reminiscences, 220; “Our Washoe Letter,” SFMC, 19 January 1864, 1.

  20. “Letter from Carson City,” VCTE, 12 December 1863; “Doings in Nevada,” New York Sunday Mercury, 7 February 1864, 3, rpt. Mark Twain of the Enterprise, 95, 122–26; Budd, Mark Twain: Social Philosopher, 9; “Defeated,” NCT, 21 January 1864, 3.

  21. “Governor Nye,” Stockton (Calif.) Independent, 31 March 1863, 2; “No Blood Shed,” NCT, 29 December 1863, 2; “On the War Path,” GHN, 20 October 1864, 2; NCT, 31 December 1863, 2; SFB, 21 January 1864, 2; “Ashamed of the Concern,” EB, 13 January 1864, 2.

  22. MTL, 1:56; Harte, Condensed Novels, [vii]; The Washoe Giant in San Francisco, 58–60; Rodgers, “Artemus Ward and Mark Twain’s ‘Jumping Frog,’” 282; Fishkin, “Intro
duction,” in A Historical Guide to Mark Twain, 7. See also Tom Sawyer, 129.

  23. “Mark Twain,” EB, 5 September 1863, 2; “In Search of an Item,” GHN, 28 October 1863, 3; “Mining Days Sweetheart of Mark Twain,” 1–2; MTL, 1:216, 1:359; “Mark Twain,” EB, 17 December 1863, 1; Loomis, “Dan de Quille’s Mark Twain,” 342; “Mr. Twain,” EB, 18 December 1863, 3.

  24. “A Reminiscence of Artemus Ward,” New York Sunday Mercury, 7 July 1867, rpt. Collected Tales, 1:231; Lorch, “Mark Twain’s ‘Artemus Ward’ Lecture,” 327–43; Hingston, “Introduction,” 5.

  25. Goodman, “Artemus Ward,” 1; De Quille, “Salad Days,” 13–14; “Artemus Ward,” EB, 19 December 1863, 3; Josh, “That Poor Widow,” GHN, 19 December 1863, 2; “The Poor Widow Item,” GHN, 22 December 1863, 2.

  26. Graham, Handset Reminiscences, 142–43; “An Inapt Illustration,” EB, 28 December 1863, 3; Lorch, The Trouble Begins at Eight, 15; “Mark Twain on Artemus Ward,” New York Times, 2 January 1880, 3; MTCI, 215.

  27. Fatout, Mark Twain in Virginia City, 130; Austin, Artemus Ward, 114; Howells, “Introduction,” xiv; “Mark Twain in the Metropolis,” Golden Era, 26 June 1864, 3; ET&S, 2:10–12; MTL, 4:408.

  28. MTL, 1:267–68, 4:316–17; “Mark Twain on Artemus Ward,” 3; Goodman, “Artemus Ward,” 1; De Quille, “Salad Days,” 13–14.

  29. Seitz, Artemus Ward: A Biography, 142; Mark Twain’s Letters, ed. Paine, 94; Seitz, Artemus Ward: A Biography, 145; Doten, Journals of Alfred Doten, 766–76; De Quille, “Artemus Ward in Nevada,” 405; MTL, 1:268.

  30. Branch, Literary Apprenticeship, 291; Fatout, Mark Twain in Virginia City, 134; Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, 242; MTL, 1:267–68.

  31. Austin, Artemus Ward, 113; Stone, The Innocent Eye, 39; “Doings in Nevada,” New York Sunday Mercury, 7 February 1864, 3, rpt. Mark Twain of the Enterprise, 122–26; ET&S, 1:355; Ada Clare, “Washoe Wanderings,” Golden Era, 3 April 1864, 3; Branch, Literary Apprenticeship, 121; Cleveland Leader, 28 May 1866, 2; Wisconsin State Register, 26 May 1866, 2; Sacramento Bee, 19 June 1866, 1.