Autobiography of Mark Twain

by Mark Twain

  38.6–11 I had spent several months in the Sandwich Islands for the Sacramento Union . . . on the platform in San Francisco] See AutoMT1, 128, 226–27, 501–2 n. 128.22–24, 536–37 nn. 225.29–31, 226.41–227.1.

  38.15–20 I found Fuller there in some kind of business . . . matronly of aspect, and married] In January 1867 Fuller was vice-president of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, with offices at 57 Broadway. He was married to his first wife, Mary F. Fuller (1829?–70); his daughters, Ida F. and Anna Cora, were about seventeen and thirteen, respectively (Fuller 1911; Portsmouth Census 1860, 679:740).

  38.39–40 He would have the basement hall in Cooper Institute] Fuller booked the hall, in the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, for 6 May 1867. This free educational institution had been established in 1859 by inventor, industrialist, and philanthropist Peter Cooper (1791–1883). Occupying an entire block between Third and Fourth avenues and Seventh and Eighth streets, in addition to its large basement lecture hall it included stores and offices, art galleries and studios, laboratories, and an extensive library, and offered diploma and degree programs for working-class men and women of all races. Today the Cooper Union continues its tuition-free tradition and is a leading college of art, architecture, and engineering (James Miller 1866, 49–50; Lossing 1884, 670–72; Cooper Union 2011).

  39.1 Oh, he was all on fire with his project] In 1911 Fuller claimed that it was Clemens who was fired with the idea of a New York lecture and insisted upon Cooper Union as the venue. In 1895 Clemens recounted this episode in some detail for a lecture he wrote out but never gave, now published as “Frank Fuller and My First New York Lecture” (Fuller 1911; SLC 2009a, 5–17; for the contemporary details of this episode, including his letters at the time and reviews of the lecture, see L2: 23 Apr 1867 to Stoddard, 33–35 n. 7; 1 May 1867 to JLC and family through the link note preceding 14 May 1867 to Stanton, 38–44; and 28 Nov 1868 to OLL, 292–93, and “Enclosures with the Letters,” 417–19).

  40.18 That episode must have cost him four or five hundred dollars] Fuller recalled that “the expense of the lecture was a little over $600; the receipts were not quite $300” (Fuller 1911).

  40.24–30 I put myself in Redpath’s hands . . . whether it was the following year] Clemens did not undertake any lecture tour in the season of 1867–68, following his 6 May success at the Cooper Union and the Quaker City excursion, which took place from June to November. He did tour dozens of cities and towns in the Midwest and the East in 1868–69, but it was not until the following season that he signed with James Redpath’s Boston Lyceum Bureau, for an eastern tour that ran from 1 November 1869 through 21 January 1870. For Clemens’s 1898–99 accounts of his experiences on the lecture circuit see “Lecture-Times” and “Ralph Keeler” (AutoMT1, 146–49, 151–53, and notes on 506–12).

  40.35–37 Last fall his wife’s brother was murdered . . . beaten him to death with a club] Fuller’s first wife died in 1870, and on 14 December of that year he married Annie Weeks Thompson (1840?–1906) (Chatham Census 1880, 792:65C; “Married,” New York Times, 15 Dec 1870, 5). Her brother, Jacob Thompson (b. 1837?), exchange editor of the New York Times for nearly forty years, died on 8 September 1905. He had been found that morning, unconscious and severely injured, in his room at the Hotel St. James. The chambermaid who found Thompson reported that he “was almost covered with blood, which also stained the carpet around and spattered the wall above for about four feet” (“J. H. Thompson Found Dying in His Room,” New York Times, 9 Sept 1905, 6). An autopsy revealed that Thompson had died of three severe skull fractures. It was soon determined that he had been robbed of a gold watch and several hundred dollars. The suspected murderer, a St. James bellboy, died on 31 October, before he could be apprehended, from stab wounds received in a domestic altercation (New York Times: “Mr. Thompson Slain and Probably Robbed,” 10 Sept 1905, 5; “Mr. Thompson’s Lights Burning All the Night,” 12 Sept 1905, 2; “Seek Former Servant in Thompson Case,” 15 Sept 1905, 5; “Death Beats Police in Thompson Case,” 1 Nov 1905, 1).

  41.6 She passed to her rest about three days later] Annie Fuller died on 10 February 1906. On 2 February Isabel Lyon wrote in her diary, “This afternoon a messenger came with a note from Mr. Frank Fuller asking, Mr. Clemens to call on Mr. Fuller’s ill ill wife. I telephoned to him that Mr. Clemens would be happy to do so, & tomorrow afternoon at 5 has been set for the call.” It seems likely that this visit is the same one that Clemens describes here. Lyon continued with a description of Fuller similar to the one in this dictation (“Died,” New York Times, 11 Feb 1906, 7; Lyon 1906, entry for 2 Feb).

  41.18 Homer Hawkins] A twenty-two-year-old timekeeper for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (“Learns His Life Secret in Plot to Blackmail,” New York World, 12 Apr 1906, 2).

  41.19–20 he is only the adopted son of Dr. Frank Fuller] Louis R. Fuller (b. 1878) was adopted at three months of age by Frank and Annie Fuller, after their own son died in infancy. Louis’s birth mother was a sixteen-year-old woman from a family “equal in birth and breeding” to the Fullers, and young Louis later came to know her as a family friend (“Learns His Life Secret in Plot to Blackmail,” New York World, 12 Apr 1906, 2).

  41.23–24 Mr. Rowbotham, whose daughter is engaged to marry Fuller] George B. Rowbotham was president of the Bay State Belting Company in Boston (“Father of Fuller’s Fiancee Says Wedding Will Take Place,” New York World, 13 Apr 1906, 18).

  41.26–27 Mrs. Ellen Faxon] No daughters of Fuller have been identified other than Ida and Anna (see the note at 38.15–20).

  42.8 his uncle . . . was being educated at Yale] Louis Fuller was a 1905 graduate of Harvard University, not Yale (Harvard Directory 1910, 250).

  43.1–2 I doubt if I have thought of Olive Logan . . . for a good thirty years and more] Clemens had written about Logan in an 1898–99 autobiographical essay, describing her in the same way he does here (see “Ralph Keeler,” AutoMT1, 151–52, 512 n. 152.3–7).

  43.4–7 the Anna Dickinson kind . . . could powerfully move an audience with their eloquence] Dickinson (1842–1932), a powerful and eloquent speaker on abolition and women’s rights, was one of the best-paid performers on the lecture circuit, earning as much as $200 per appearance. She was a close friend of Clemens’s in-laws, the Langdon family of Elmira, and became an acquaintance of his as well, although their opinions of each other were not entirely positive. Dickinson was one of several “women who had something to say” who were represented by Clemens’s lecture manager, James Redpath, in the early 1870s (see L3: 12 Jan 1869 to Langdon, 30 n. 3; 22 Jan 1869 to Langdon, 63, 66 n. 2; “Enclosures with the Letters,” L4, 550 n. 8).

  43.27–29 world-famous Parisian male milliner, Worth . . . his new but prosperous rival, Savarin] Charles Frederick Worth (1825–95) was an Anglo-French designer of women’s clothes, the leader of Paris fashion for many years. By “Savarin” Clemens presumably means the rival fashion house of L. Savarre (Thieme 1993, 2–3).

  45.9–11 “Surf; or, Life at Long Branch,” dramatized Wilkie Collins’s “Armadale” . . . Francois Coppee’s “Le Passant.”] Logan’s play Surf, a melodramatic farce, opened in New York in January 1870. Her dramatization of Armadale, a novel by English author Wilkie Collins, was first produced in New York in December 1866. She made a metrical translation of Le Passant (The Stroller) by French poetic dramatist François Coppée, which was staged in London in 1887.

  45.21–22 “The Widow Bedott.” . . . swept this continent with a hurricane of laughter] Frances Miriam Berry Whitcher (1812?–52) settled in Elmira with her minister husband in 1847. She began writing when very young, but didn’t publish her first story until 1839, when she was nearly thirty. Between 1846 and 1850 she wrote a highly popular series of satirical magazine sketches featuring her comic creation, the Widow Bedott. They were first collected in book form in 1855 as The Widow Bedott Papers, which sold over 100,000 copies and was reprinted many times (Gowdy 2003, 392–95).

  45.36 you see it
is another tragedy] Despite the assistance of a friend, who settled her in a New York apartment, Logan returned to England, where she died in a “pauper lunatic asylum” in 1909 (“Olive Logan in an Asylum,” New York Times, 27 Feb 1909, 5).

  46.3–14 In this morning’s paper . . . news that she is on her way to the cemetery] Accounts of these events appeared in several newspapers; the particular one that Clemens read has not been identified. The woman, Katherine B. Raymond of Los Angeles, who had shown signs of mental illness for years, recovered from her near asphyxiation and was committed to an insane asylum. Because of her condition, she was not prosecuted for murder (San Francisco Chronicle: “May Not Be Prosecuted for Her Son’s Murder,” 18 Apr 1906, 2; “Committed to Highlands,” 28 Apr 1906, 1).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 21 May 1906

  46.23–25 Charles H. Webb . . . The Californian] Charles Henry Webb (1834–1905) was born in northern New York State. Inspired by reading Moby-Dick when it was first published (1851), he shipped on a whaler, where he served for more than three years. In 1860 he began a long career as a writer and journalist when he joined the staff of the New York Times, serving as its literary editor and, briefly, as a correspondent during the Civil War. In 1863 he went to California, where he worked as city editor of the San Francisco Evening Bulletin. In May 1864 he founded the Californian, alternating with Bret Harte as editor until mid-1866, when Webb left for New York (for Clemens’s association with the Californian see AutoMT1, 509 n. 150.2–4). He published parodies and light verse in several journals, and corresponded for the New York Tribune under the pseudonym “John Paul.” He was a successful inventor as well, and was granted patents on a cartridge-loading machine (which he sold to the Remington Arms Company) and an adding machine.

  46.33–34 Artemus Ward passed through California . . . in 1865 or ’66, I told him the “Jumping Frog” story] Clemens met, and enjoyed a convivial time with, popular humorist Artemus Ward (born Charles Farrar Browne, 1834–67) in December 1863, when the latter lectured in Virginia City. Ward soon recommended Clemens to the New York Sunday Mercury (which ultimately published nine Mark Twain sketches). Then in November 1864 he wrote to ask Clemens to contribute a story to his forthcoming book, Artemus Ward; His Travels (Charles Farrar Browne 1865). But Clemens did not see Ward’s letter until February 1865, after his return from Angels Camp, where he first heard the “Jumping Frog” story, and by then he thought it was too late to comply. When Ward persisted, Clemens wrote at least two drafts of the story before sending the final draft, “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog,” to New York in mid-October 1865. So Clemens never “told” Ward the story, although he did tell it to Bret Harte and others before he managed to write it out to his satisfaction (L1: 2? Jan 1864 to JLC, 267, 269–70 nn. 5–6; link note following 11 Nov 1864 to OC, 320–22; 20 Jan 1866 to JLC and PAM, 327–28, 330 n. 3; ET&S2, 262–65; AutoMT1, 515 n. 161.9–10).

  46.35–47.1 his publisher, Carleton . . . didn’t think much of it] George W. Carleton (1832–1901) began his publishing career as a humorous illustrator. In 1857 he cofounded a bookstore and publishing house in New York, becoming sole proprietor in 1861. By 1869 the firm was one of the most successful of its era, specializing in works of humor and popular fiction, encyclopedias, and self-improvement books. In addition to Ward, Carleton’s list of authors included humorist Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) and Thomas Bailey Aldrich, who for a time also served as his literary adviser (Murray 1986, 84–85; “Obituary. George W. Carleton,” Publishers’ Weekly, 19 Oct 1901, 857). In an 1895 interview Clemens gave a different (and apparently more accurate) account: he claimed that Ward’s “volume was got out before ‘The Jumping Frog’ arrived” (“A Chat with Mark Twain,” New Zealand Mail [Wellington], 12 Dec 1895, 51, quoted in Scharnhorst 2006, 259–60).

  47.3–5 made Henry Clapp a present of it . . . joyous feature of the obsequies] Henry Clapp, Jr. (1814–75), a journalist, satirist, and brilliant wit, was the center of a group of New York “bohemians,” writers and other artists who congregated at Pfaff’s saloon to carouse and converse. In 1858 he founded the Saturday Press, a literary weekly of fiction, poetry, and critical commentary. It ceased publication in December 1860, but resumed in August 1865; “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog” appeared in the issue of 18 November 1865 (SLC 1865e). Although the magazine was in financial difficulty, it survived for seven more months. Elsewhere Clemens recalled that Carleton gave the story to Clapp “for nothing, which was lucky, as Henry Clapp never could pay for anything” (“A Chat with Mark Twain,” New Zealand Mail [Wellington], 12 Dec 1895, 51, quoted in Scharnhorst 2006, 259–60). Clapp lived for many years in poverty, contributing occasionally to magazines and newspapers, and died from complications of alcoholism (“Obituary. Henry Clapp,” New York Times, 11 Apr 1875, 7; “The Late Henry Clapp,” New York Daily Graphic, 16 Apr 1875, unknown page; Mott 1938a, 38–40).

  47.9 Webb undertook to collate the sketches] Bret Harte proposed to Clemens in January 1866 that they issue a joint collection of sketches, but they did not pursue the idea. Clemens did, however, gather clippings of some of his Enterprise and Californian sketches into a scrapbook, which he carried with him when he left San Francisco for New York in December 1866. It was there, in early 1867, that Webb persuaded him to reprint some of his sketches. The present account implies that Webb prepared the book, entitled The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches, but it is clear that Clemens himself played a large role in selecting and revising the twenty-seven sketches included in the collection (20 Jan 1866 to JLC and PAM, L1, 328; for a detailed account of the editing process see ET&S1, 503–42).

  47.33–34 I refused a book of yours] Carleton explained elsewhere that he had declined the manuscript “because the author looked so disreputable” (Ellsworth 1919, 222, quoted in ET&S1, 505 n. 8).

  48.3–4 He made the plates . . . and published it through the American News Company] The book, issued in April 1867, was printed and bound by John A. Gray and Green and distributed by the American News Company; it sold for $1.50 (ET&S1, 543–45).

  48.6–9 found a letter from Elisha Bliss . . . alternative of ten thousand dollars] Bliss’s letter, written on 21 November 1867, is now lost, but when Clemens replied on 2 December he proposed a book based on the newspaper letters he had written during the Quaker City excursion, weeded “of their chief faults of con[s]truction & inelegancies of expression. . . . If you think such a book would suit your purpose, please drop me a line.” Bliss accepted, and in late January 1868 they agreed that the author’s royalty would be 5 percent of the retail price of the book (for Bliss, the Quaker City excursion, and the writing of The Innocents Abroad, see AutoMT1, 227–28, 537 n. 227.13–14, 596 n. 370.32–33; L2: 2 Dec 1867 to Bliss, 119; 24 Jan 1868 to JLC and PAM, 160, 162–63 n. 3; 27 Jan 1868 to Bliss, 169).

  48.9 I consulted A. D. Richardson] Albert Deane Richardson (1833–69), journalist and traveler, worked on several newspapers in the East and Midwest before joining the staff of the New York Tribune, for which he corresponded during the Civil War. He was captured by the Confederates at Vicksburg, but escaped after eighteen months in prison. His books about his war experiences (The Secret Service, the Field, the Dungeon, and the Escape, 1865) and the Far West (Beyond the Mississippi, 1867), published by the American Publishing Company, sold 100,000 and 75,000 copies respectively (2 Dec 1867 to Bliss, L2, 120–21 n. 4).

  48.12–13 Bliss provided a multitude of illustrations . . . contract date for the issue went by] The Innocents Abroad was published by the subscription method: agents solicited prepublication orders and delivered books when they came from the press. Clemens’s contract, signed on 16 October 1868, stipulated that copies would be ready for the agents to deliver “very early next spring,” which proved to be overly optimistic (“Contract for The Innocents Abroad,” L2, 421–22).

  48.14–15 I was lecturing all over the country] Clemens was on tour from mid-November 1868 until mid-March 1869, delivering “The American Vandal Abroad
,” about the Quaker City excursion, more than forty times in the East and Midwest (“Lecture Schedule, 1868–1870,” L3, 481–83).

  48.28–34 One of the directors, a Mr. Drake . . . begged me to take away “The Innocents Abroad”] As a young man Sidney Drake (1811–98) was apprenticed to a bookbinder in Hartford, and in 1841 began his own bookbinding business, which—with various partners—endured for over fifty years. He was a director of the American Publishing Company from its inception in 1865, and president in 1869. Clemens gave a similar account of this incident in 1903, claiming that Drake begged him, “as a charity, to take the book away, because it was not serious enough and could finish the destruction of the Company” (SLC 1903a; “Death of Sidney Drake,” Hartford Courant, 14 Feb 1898, 7).