Autobiography of Mark Twain

by Mark Twain

  280.37–38 he stenographically reported a lecture of mine in St. Louis] Stanley was a staff reporter for the St. Louis Missouri Democrat when he reported Clemens’s 26 March 1867 lecture on the Sandwich Islands (20 Dec 1870 to Judd, L4, 278–80 n. 8).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 21 November 1906

  281.32–282.10 Father Hawley . . . one of these annual assemblages] David Hawley (1809–76) was a farmer until 1851, when he was hired by the City Mission Board to do humanitarian work in Hartford. For the next twenty-five years he concerned himself with the “ministration of temporal charities,” devoting much of his time to visiting the poor. Hawley reported on his work at annual meetings of the City Missionary Society. Clemens twice gave lectures in Hartford for the benefit of Hawley’s mission: on 31 January 1873 and on 5 March 1875 (28 Jan 1873 to the Public, L5, 287–90; 6 Mar 1875 to Seaver, L6, 402–3; “City Missions,” Hartford Courant, 8 Dec 1873, 2).

  282.16 Wendell Phillips] Phillips (1811–84) first won fame in the late 1830s for his eloquent and impassioned antislavery speeches. After the Civil War he advocated a wide variety of reforms, including voting rights for freedmen, equal rights for women, temperance, and better treatment of Native Americans. Clemens met him at the Langdon house in Elmira on 18 March 1869, and that evening he and Olivia probably attended Phillips’s lecture on Irish political leader Daniel O’Connell. Later, Clemens and Phillips were both clients of James Redpath’s Lyceum Bureau (link note following 13 Mar 1869, L3, 174–75).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 22 November 1906

  283.25–284.16 he went to Washington . . . I supported the Chace Bill] At the invitation of the American Copyright League, which was sponsoring the “Hawley bill” on international copyright, Clemens went to Washington in January 1886 to testify before the Senate Committee on Patents. He was not, however, in perfect accord with the league’s official stance, and his testimony was diffident. At the hearing of 28 January, Clemens, upset by differences between himself and the league’s leaders, excused himself from speaking; at the next day’s hearing, urged by George Walton Green, the league’s secretary, to “speak right out like a little man,” he lent qualified support to the Hawley bill. In his remarks, Clemens advocated the adoption of what he called the “printing clause,” which would protect the interests of publishers, printers, and manufacturers by requiring that books be domestically produced (Fatout 1976, 206–9; Robert Underwood Johnson 1923, 267). The rival bill introduced by Senator Jonathan Chace of Rhode Island, a member of the Committee on Patents, did include such a clause, but Clemens refrained from mentioning the Chace bill explicitly. Also mentioned in the newspaper clipping inserted by Susy are General Joseph Hawley; the International Typographical Union, which represented workers in the printing industry in the United States and Canada; and James Russell Lowell, president of the American Copyright League since 1885 (Seville 2006, 217–24, 299; for Hawley see AutoMT1, 576 n. 317.23–24; for the Chace bill see also AD, 18 Dec 1906, note at 318.21–22).

  284.27–28 Somewhere about 1888 or ’89 . . . author of “Struwwelpeter.”] The author and illustrator of Der Struwwelpeter (1845) was Heinrich Hoffmann (1809–94), of Frankfurt. Clemens may have met him during his visit to Frankfurt in October 1891. On 27 October he wrote his publisher, Fred Hall, from Berlin that he had just spent “3 days & nights” translating Der Struwwelpeter into English and was about to send him the text. He wanted Hall to publish his translation “on the blank page facing the corresponding picture & the corresponding German verses,” and to have the book “on the American market Dec. 10 to catch the holidays.” But the very next day he again wrote Hall, this time from Frankfurt, to say that he had been trying and failing to acquire the plates of the German edition, which he wanted to reproduce in his own book (CSmH, in MTLP, 287–89; Wecter 1941). Clemens’s translation, which he never published, goes unmentioned in this 1906 dictation. His 1891 manuscript preface begins:

  STRUWWELPETER is the best known book in Germany, & has the largest sale known to the book trade, & the widest circulation. For nearly fifty years it has had its home in every German nursery. No man can divine just where its mysterious fascination lies, perhaps, but that it has a peculiar & powerful fascination for children is a fact that was settled long ago. (SLC 1891a)

  285.40–286.3 five years from now my copyrights will begin to expire . . . another twenty-eight years’ copyright] In 1906 United States law conferred copyright on original works for twenty-eight years, reckoned from the date of publication, and a renewal term of fourteen years. Under this law, The Innocents Abroad, first published in 1869, if renewed, would have gone into the public domain in 1911, to be followed in due course by Clemens’s other works. For his plan to extend the copyright of his books by republishing them with the Autobiographical Dictations included as running footnotes, see AutoMT1, 23–24 (Draper 1901, 40).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 23 November 1906

  286.10–11 Thorvald Solberg, Register of Copyrights] Solberg (1852–1949), a member of the American Copyright League, served as the register of copyrights from 1897 until 1930. He played a large role in formulating the Copyright Act of 1909 (see the note at 286.12–13; “T. Solberg Dead; Copyright Expert,” New York Times, 16 July 1949, 13).

  286.12–13 Senate and House . . . pending Copyright Bill on December 7th and 8th] A bill “to amend and consolidate” United States copyright law had been introduced on 31 May 1906 and referred to the House and Senate Committees on Patents. A first round of public hearings was held in June; at a subsequent hearing (on 7 December 1906), Clemens was one of the speakers (see the ADs of 18, 19, and 26 December 1906). The bill was eventually ratified as the Copyright Act of 1909, which provided a copyright term of twenty-eight years from the date of publication, renewable for a further twenty-eight years (“The Copyright Campaign,” Publishers’ Weekly, 3 July 1909, 22–24; 7 Dec 1906 to JC, photocopy in CU-MARK).

  286.21–36 Thirty-five years ago, an idea, in the line of international copyright . . . cruelly and cordially] A bill requiring the United States to recognize the copyrights of foreign authors was introduced in the House in December 1871, but languished in committee and was finally reported unfavorably, in February 1873. In December 1872 Clemens drafted his first attempt at a petition in favor of international copyright, which perhaps was never circulated (20–22 Dec 1872 to Twichell, L5, 255–58). In 1875 he framed a new petition and, in early November, went to Boston “to see some of the literary big guns about the copyright project” (27 Oct 1875 to Howells, L6, 576–78). Clemens expected Holmes’s (qualified) support: “Holmes will sign,” he had written to Howells on 18 September, “he said he would if he didn’t have to stand at the head.” But after this visit to Boston, and the obloquy which Holmes evidently rained on the project, Clemens dropped his petition and, for a time, his efforts toward copyright reform (see 18 Sept 1875 to Howells with the enclosed petition, L6, 536–39).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 24 November 1906

  288.18 Lord Thwing] The family name of Henry, first Baron Thring (1818–1907), appears consistently in the typescripts as “Thwing,” leaving very little doubt that Hobby understood Clemens to be saying “Thwing.” Clemens did not correct that spelling; in fact, when Hobby once typed “Thring” in a later dictation he “corrected” it to “Thwing” (AD, 26 Dec 1906).

  289.4–13 statements made to them by Stephenson . . . twelve miles an hour!] English engineer George Stephenson (1781–1848), the “father of the railways,” appeared before a House of Commons committee in 1825 to support a proposed railway between Liverpool and Manchester. The story of his testimony became a commonplace of nineteenth-century journalism. Clemens’s considerably elaborated version may ultimately derive from the popular account of Samuel Smiles:

  In his strong Northumbrian dialect, he [Stephenson] struggled for an utterance, in the face of the sneers, interruptions, and ridicule of the opponents of the measure, and even of the Committee, some of whom shook their heads and whispered
doubts as to his sanity, when he energetically avowed that he could make the locomotive go at the rate of twelve miles an hour! (Smiles 1857, 231)

  In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Clemens placed Stephenson in the company of Gutenberg, James Watt, and Alexander Graham Bell, “the creators of this world—after God” (CY, 369).

  289.33–35 Macaulay . . . trivial and jejune in its reasonings] During the House of Commons debates on what would become the Copyright Act of 1842, Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) made two renowned speeches (on 5 February 1841 and 6 April 1842) against proposed copyright schemes. In his first speech he claimed that copyright was equivalent to a monopoly and opposed an attempt to extend it to sixty years after an author’s death. His second stressed the justice and fairness of an equal term of copyright for all books and proposed the law that was ultimately passed: see the note at 290.17–19. Macaulay’s biographer (and nephew), G. O. Trevelyan, called this speech “as amusing as an essay of Elia, and as convincing as a proof of Euclid.” Clemens was very familiar with the works of Macaulay, one of his favorite writers, these strictures on the copyright speeches notwithstanding (Trevelyan 1876, 2:134–36; Gribben 1980, 1:434–36, 2:712).

  290.17–19 in London seven years ago . . . add eight entire years to the copyright limit, and make it fifty] On 3 April 1900, five members of a Select Committee of the House of Lords heard Clemens’s testimony on the two copyright bills that were then before Parliament. Since 1842 Britain had recognized copyright in a literary work for a term of the author’s lifetime plus seven years, or forty-two years from the date of publication, whichever proved longer. One bill under consideration proposed a term of the author’s lifetime plus thirty years. Clemens read a written statement in which he argued for perpetual copyright, and was then questioned by the committee (Draper 1901, 40, 45; “Mark Twain on Copyright,” The Publishers’ Circular, 7 Apr 1900, 367–68; “Mark Twain,” New York Times, 21 Apr 1900, BR7; SLC 2002, 112 n. 3).

  290.19–20 One of the ablest men in the House of Lords did the most of the question-asking—Lord Thwing] In this dictation Clemens takes considerable liberties with the facts as they appear from the published minutes of the committee session. In particular he inflates the role of Lord Thring, making him his chief interlocutor; in fact, it appears that all the statements and questions that Clemens attributes to Lord Thring were made by others or not made at all (House of Lords 1900).

  291.4–8 New and Old Testaments had been granted perpetual copyright . . . the press of Oxford University] In the United Kingdom, copyright in the Authorized Version of the Bible is vested in perpetuity in the Crown, which delegates it to the King’s Printer and the presses of Oxford and Cambridge universities. The situation for the Book of Common Prayer is analogous. In the Autobiographical Dictation of 30 July 1907, Clemens identifies publisher John Murray as the source of his information (Bentley 1997, 372, 386).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 30 November 1906

  293.24–34 a new version of “There is a happy land” . . . I heard Billy Rice sing it in the negro-minstrel show] This song burlesques the first verse of a hymn written in 1838 by Andrew Young (N&J3, 38 n. 76):

  There is a happy land, Far, far away, Where saints in glory stand, Bright, bright as day. O, how they sweetly sing, “Worthy is our Saviour King, Loud let His praises ring, Praise, praise for aye.”

  The author of the burlesque version is unknown; it became popular around 1876. Billy Rice (stage name of William H. Pearl, 1844–1902) was an exceptionally popular minstrel-show performer whose career lasted over thirty years (“A Boarding House Hymn,” New York Commercial Advertiser, 18 July 1876, 1; “Fact and Fancy,” Macon [Ga.] Telegraph, 3 Nov 1877, 4; Edward Le Roy Rice 1911, 163).

  293.39–40 Billy Birch, David Wambold, Backus . . . made life a pleasure to me forty years ago] William Birch (1831–97), with Charles Backus (1831–83), Dave Wambold (1836–89), and William H. Bernard (1830–90), formed the famous San Francisco Minstrel Troupe, which Clemens enjoyed in his California days. In an 1867 letter to the Alta California, Clemens wrote from New York: “Our old San Francisco Minstrels have made their mark here, most unquestionably.... The firm remains the same—Birch, Backus, Wambold and Bernard. They have made an extraordinary success” (SLC 1867c). With variations in personnel, the Birch and Backus troupe had an eighteen-year residency in New York that ended only with the untimely death of Backus in 1883 (ET&S1, 316, 490 n. 316.19; Edward Le Roy Rice 1911, 68–71).

  294.13 the first negro-minstrel show I ever saw] The earliest minstrel troupe that has been documented as visiting Hannibal was G. Bancker’s Sable Brothers, mentioned in a letter written by “Lorio”—almost certainly Orion Clemens—and published in the St. Louis Reveille of 30 April 1847 (Scharnhorst 2010, 277–79).

  296.5–6 “Buffalo Gals,” “Camptown Races,” “Old Dan Tucker,”] These three songs were written for, or featured in, minstrel shows. “Buffalo Gals” derives from the song “Lubly Fan” (1844), written by the minstrel performer Cool White; “Camptown Races” was written by Stephen Foster (1850); “Old Dan Tucker” was published in 1843 by the minstrel Dan Emmett (Mahar 1999, 274; Gribben 1980, 1:222, 238).

  296.6–8 “The Blue Juniata,” . . . “The Larboard Watch,”] The songs mentioned here are: “The Blue Juniata” by Marion Dix Sullivan (1844); “Ellen Bayne” (1854) and “Nelly Bly” (1849) by Stephen Foster; “A Life on the Ocean Wave” by Epes Sargent (1838); and “The Larboard Watch” by Thomas E. Williams (Gribben 1980, 1:238, 2:603, 678, 774).

  296.18 Aunt Betsey Smith] Elizabeth W. Smith (b. 1794 or 1795), an old friend of the Clemens family’s in Hannibal, was remembered by Annie Moffett Webster, Clemens’s niece, as a frequent and welcome visitor in St. Louis. She served as the model for minor characters in “Those Extraordinary Twins” (SLC 1892c), “Hellfire Hotchkiss” (1897, in Inds, 109–33), and “Schoolhouse Hill” (1898, in Inds, 214–59; 3? Oct 1859 to Smith, L1, 94–95 n. 2).

  296.40 the Christy minstrel troupe] The minstrel troupe led by E. P. Christy (1815–62), active from 1843 to 1855, was one of the first to enjoy widespread fame. After Christy retired in 1855, various troupes, led by his sons or associates, continued to perform under the Christy name (Brown 2005).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 1 December 1906

  297.32 Mr. Clemens’s early experiments with mesmerism] The texts of 1, 2, and 3 December were not in fact dictated, but were written out in Clemens’s normal longhand in 1903 and inserted here in 1906.

  297.33–34 I think the year was 1850. As to that I am not sure . . . it was May] Clemens may be describing events that occurred in May 1847, when two mesmerists named Sparhawk and Layton performed in Hannibal, conducting “experiments” every night for two weeks. According to the Hannibal Gazette, their “subject (who resides in the city) seemed fully under the magnetic influence.” The performances were also described in a letter written by “Lorio” (probably Orion Clemens) to the St. Louis Reveille, published on 20 May (see Scharnhorst 2010, 279–80, which quotes the Gazette).

  298.17 Hicks, our journeyman] Urban East Hicks (1828–1905) evidently worked from the mid-1840s as a journeyman printer on Henry La Cossitt’s Hannibal Gazette (where in 1847 Clemens was briefly a printer’s devil and errand boy), and then in 1848–50 on the Hannibal Journal. Probably in the fall of 1850 he moved to Orion Clemens’s Hannibal Western Union, where by early January 1851 Clemens and Jim Wolf were apprenticed. Later that year Hicks set out for the Pacific Northwest, where he taught school and worked as a printer. In 1855–56 he was a volunteer officer in the Yakima and Klikitat Indian Wars, and thereafter he served the Washington territorial government in various capacities. After 1861 he serially edited and published several newspapers in Washington and Oregon. In 1886 Clemens wrote to a mutual friend, “I remember Urban E. vividly & pleasantly; & also the fencing-matches with column-rules & quack-medicine stereotypes . . . . If I could see Hicks here I would receive him with a barbecue & a torchlight procession, & put the
entire house at his disposal” (17 Jan 1886 to Himes, MoPeS; Inds, 324; Hicks 1886, 20; AutoMT1, 515 n. 159.30, 645 n. 459.22–23, 651).