Carmela Valente wrote:
> Dear Group:
> Though I have read several biographies, I do not remember if the question I 
> am asking was ever answered.  Did anyone actually call Twain "mark" when 
> they greeted him?  My assumption is that Mark Twain was his name only in 
> writing or in introducing him.  I also assume,  perhaps incorrectly, that he 
> was rarely addressed as Mark".
> I was just wondering.
> Camy 
>
>   
Yes, and this fact has surprised me in the writing of my own book, a 
biography of Twain (still in progress).  Not only did some of his 
friends, including William Dean Howells, one of his best, address him as 
"Mark," but he signed many of his letters that way.  I have kept to the 
rule of always using either "Twain" or "Mark Twain" in respect for his 
pen name, but it seems that this identity did indeed penetrate his 
personal sense of himself.  Any other theories out there?