Dear Forum Members, 

There could be dozens of stories concerning Tom Tenney's generosity like the fascinating account that Kent Rasmussen just shared about the confidence that Tom gave him to tackle writing his wonderfully inclusive encyclopedia, MARK TWAIN A-Z.

In my own case, for example, I came out of graduate school with an eventually revised and enlarged dissertation about Twain's library and reading whose annotated catalog had grown (quite unexpectedly, believe me) to 5,000-plus pages.

Several university presses showed initial interest but quickly backed away when they learned of its massive length.  I began to despair about ever getting it published.

Tom Tenney, whom I did not know at all, somehow heard about my research, contacted me in a series of telephone conversations, and urged me not to give up hope.  He asked me to send him a few sample pages.

A few weeks after his initial call, a SIGNED CONTRACT arrived from the press that had recently published Tom Tenney's MARK TWAIN:  A REFERENCE GUIDE.  Tom had had persuasively sold my project to his editors, sight unseen!  Within several more months my two-volume MARK TWAIN'S LIBRARY:  A RECONSTRUCTION reached print.  

I thanked Tom for that enormous favor numerous times over the years, but he invariably (and characteristically) brushed off my efforts to praise him for this and similar actions on behalf of other scholars.  The fact that my book added to our knowledge about a major American author whom he admired was all that mattered to him.  He held to an ideal about cooperative literary study that never wavered.

Sincerely,
Alan
Alan Gribben