BOOK REVIEW

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Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by:
Barbara Schmidt

Copyright (c) 2002 Mark Twain Forum. This review may not be published or
redistributed in any medium without permission.

Frank, Michael B. and Harriet Elinor Smith (eds.). _Mark Twain's Letters,
Volume 6: 1874-75_. (The Mark Twain Papers.) Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2002. Pp. 957. Cloth, 6 x 9".  $85.00. ISBN 0-520-23772-2.

The best news of the year 2002 for Mark Twain researchers and scholars is
the release of _Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 6: 1874-75_.  Weighing in at
957 pages, this latest volume in the ongoing series, contains 348 letters,
including some personal book inscriptions, written by Samuel Clemens.  More
than half of them are published here for the first time.  For those that
have been previously published, extensive annotations have been added and
corrections made to earlier errors and omissions.  Gathered from the files
of the Mark Twain Papers at the University of California at Berkeley, from
other library special collections across the country, and from the archives
of supportive private collectors world-wide, the volume is a successful
herculean accomplishment of compilation, editing and annotation.

In addition to Clemens's outgoing letters, a large number of incoming
letters to which Clemens responded are included.  The volume also includes
a number of letters of collateral correspondence, portions of personal
journals of Clemens's friends and acquaintances (including Joseph
Twichell), portions of Clemens's own autobiography, previously unpublished
essays, and over 51 black and white illustrations, including portraits from
the family's photo album.  These sources, combined with the extensive
annotations make the ongoing _Letters_ editions one of the most
authoritative combinations of autobiography and biography ever published.

The years 1874-1875 were productive and happy for Samuel Clemens, who
enjoyed a growing international reputation.  His correspondence throughout
these two years is rich in revelations concerning his creative processes,
family, friends, and business acquaintances including those dubbed the
"Boston Trinity" of Thomas B. Aldrich, William D. Howells, and James R.
Osgood.

January 1874 found Clemens in London, where he had been for several months
on a lecture tour and the business of securing a British copyright for _The
Gilded Age_.  Clemens returned to the States in January and through the
year he worked to develop the book into a stage production starring John T.
Raymond.  The inner workings and wheelings and dealings of the
dramatization of the play and the various copyright infringement battles
are covered in extensive detail through the letters and annotations.
Clemens's concern for copyright and his power to control his own works
constitute a recurring theme throughout his correspondence during these two
years.

The years 1874 and 1875 were also a period of extensive writing and
publishing.  Clemens took an active role in producing a booklet titled
_Mark Twain's Sketches.  Number One_ for American News Company.  The small
publication has been a bibliographic curiosity among book collectors.
However, annotations provided tell the whys and wherefores of the birth,
death, and eventual release of the booklet as an advertising medium.

"A True Story, Repeated Word for Word as I Heard It" landed Clemens a debut
in _Atlantic Monthly_ in November 1874 to be followed by the series "Old
Times on the Mississippi."  Letters exchanged between William D. Howells
and Clemens give insight into the writing, editing and publication
processes.  _Mark Twain's Sketches, New and Old_ was released and the
manuscript for _The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_ was completed within this
time frame.

With success came more demands for his time and attention. Clemens was a
sought-after lecturer.  He made a handful of public appearances on stage
and declined many.  When current events caught his attention, he fired off
letters to editors and wrote newspaper commentary.  His March 1874 letter
to the London _Standard_ praising the pluck of the women's temperance
crusade stands in stark contrast to his position the following year when he
wrote his sister Pamela Moffett, "I never would be able to make you
comprehend how frantically I hate the very name of total abstinence.  I
have taught Livy at last to drink a bottle of beer every night; & all in
good time I shall teach the children to do the same" (p. 515).

Clemens's friendship with Joseph Twichell deepened.  Twichell's inspiration
fired his imagination to write about his piloting career on the
Mississippi.  He and Twichell undertook a walking trip of over 100 miles to
Boston. It was aborted on the second day when they decided to take the
train. They followed the news reports of the Henry Ward Beecher adultery
scandal.  Clemens wrote Twichell, "Mr. Tilton never has been entitled to
any sympathy since the day he heard the news & did not go straight & kill
Beecher & then humbly seek forgiveness for displaying so much vivacity" (p.
202).  He and Twichell attended the Henry Ward Beecher trial together.

Clemens's help was sought by other writers who wanted literary assistance
and advice including Thomas B. Aldrich; Edgar Wakeman, who became the
inspiration for Twain's Captain Stormfield; his old friend Frank Fuller;
Charles Henry Webb; Edward House; Louise Chandler Moulton; lecturer Anna
Dickinson; and his former newspaper colleague from Nevada, William Wright,
better known as Dan DeQuille.

Clemens also took an active interest in new technologies.  This volume
contains his first attempt at using the typewriter with a facsimile
reproduction of his first typed letter to his brother Orion written on
December 9, 1874.   Annotations clarify that Clemens's first typed literary
manuscript was _Life on the Mississippi_, not _Tom Sawyer_ as he mistakenly
recalled some years later.

Success and fame also brought beggars and requests for charity.  Clemens
saved some of his most venomous words for the beggars.  In a draft, not
known to have been sent, he replied to one such request writing, "Madam:
Your distress would move the heart of a statue.  Indeed it would move the
entire statue if it were on rollers" (p. 197).  He enlisted the help and
interest of renown showman P. T. Barnum in collecting "queer" letters from
strangers who wrote asking for favors with a notion of publishing them at
some point in time.

On the family front, Clemens was in the midst of building and relocating
the family into the Hartford mansion--a home that was attracting national
attention for its unique architecture.  His friend Mary Mason Fairbanks
visited it while it was under construction and wrote a report for the
Cleveland _Herald_ on May 4, 1874, which is reprinted in the annotations.
Also included in the annotations are portions of previously unpublished
material regarding various aspects of the new house and grounds.  Any
reader who has failed at having a green thumb can identify with Clemens's
description of trying to get his mulberry tree to grow.  From a fragment
titled "The Shakspeare Mulberry" he wrote:

"We tried different kinds of earth--all the different kinds there are,
sending to the remote islands of the sea & the far lands of the globe for
supplies; but they roused no more emotion in her than prayer would in a
cat.  We fed her with common manure; with guano; with ashes, hair
restorative, gold filings, [milk] breast milk, [cow's milk, condensed
milk,] imperial granum, whale oil, whisky, Pond's extract, blue mass,
vasiline, kerosene, Epsom slats, government bonds--in fact everything in
the nature of a persuader that could be though of; but it was of no use;
she still slumbered on, holding [all along] aloft her stiff little limbs,
as leafless & expressionless as those of a dead daddylonglegs" (p. 177).

While Samuel Clemens prospered, his brother Orion struggled financially.
Sam ultimately assisted him in leasing a chicken farm in Keokuk, Iowa.
Letters between the two brothers show Samuel often chastising his brother
and having little patience with Orion's various whimsical endeavors, which
included a flying machine and later a possible discovery of coal on his
property.  He wrote to Orion, "I grieve over the laying aside of the flying
machine as if it were my own broken idol.  But still it must be done..."(p.
27).

Clemens also wrote numerous letters to help his young nephew Samuel Moffett
gain entrance to the U. S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland--an attempt
that would later prove unsuccessful.  When his niece Annie Moffett planned
to marry Samuel Webster, he wrote inquiring about Webster's background.

In June 1874 Clara Clemens was born in Elmira, New York.  Difficulties of
child rearing are sprinkled throughout the correspondence.  Annotations
from previously unpublished passages of "A Family Sketch" and "A Record of
the Small Foolishnesses of Susie & 'Bay' Clemens (Infants.)" are included.
Regarding young daughter Susy's temper tantrums, he would later write, "
'Spare the rod & spoil the child' was well said,--& not by an amateur, I
judge" (p. 175).

Collateral correspondence indicates Olivia Clemens suffered a miscarriage
one year after the birth of Clara, "She is immensely relieved & glad
though, for she had been miserably unhappy about it--on account of her
frail health only" (p. 498).

The year 1875 closed with 40-year-old Clemens writing a letter from Santa
Claus to his daughter Susy Clemens and exchanging jests and New Year's
greetings with his friends.  The previous two years had been successful and
productive ones for the family.

The concluding appendices of the book include a genealogy chart of the
Clemens and Langdon family; items and newspaper clippings that Clemens
enclosed with his letters; Scandinavian press reviews translated into
English; reviews of the _Gilded Age_ play; William D. Howells's review of
_Mark Twain's Sketches, New and Old_; Clemens's "Spelling Match" speech on
May 12, 1875 as reported by the Hartford _Courant_; and William Seaver's
squibs about Clemens for the years 1874 and 1875 that appeared in _Harper's
Weekly_, _Harper's Bazar_, and _Harper's Monthly_.  Numerous photographs
appear throughout the volume.  Others are included in a final twenty-page
section of photos and manuscript facsimile pages.  Among these photos are
Jesse Leathers, a distant relative who became the inspiration for Simon
Lathers in _The American Claimant_; the former slave Mary Ann Cord; Rosina
Hay, Susy's nurse; P. T. Barnum and his wife; and baby photos of Clara and
Susy Clemens.

A final section of the book includes a detailed description of the
editorial practices followed to bring Clemens's particular style of
notation, emphasis, deletions, and corrections to the printed page.  Also
included is a detailed description of the provenance of the major
collections of Clemens's letters.  Textual commentaries include the Union
Catalog reference numbers, provenances when they are known, and any
previously known published appearance of the letters.  An extensive index
and bibliography is provided.  A hallmark of the bibliography is the
inclusion of all known Twain writings (both published and unpublished),
speeches and newspaper contributions for the years 1874-1875.

Throughout this volume previous errors in research made by today's scholars
have been corrected.  Some are identified by name.  When intervening
research has clarified errors in previous editions of the _Letters_ series,
this is also noted.  Some previous errors in research have been corrected
but not pointed out.  In at least one case, a letter was written declining
a speaking engagement at the Nautilus Club in February 1875.  The 1978
edition of Paul Fatout's _Mark Twain Speaking_ indicates Clemens attended
but no speech had ever been found.  Scholars and researchers who read
through the edition may well find other instances of corrections to the
historical record.  The depth and precision of annotation inherent in the
volumes in the _Letters_ series make them the essential and authoritative
research tool that supersedes all others.  They remain one of the best
investments possible for the personal home research library and a must for
the academic library.