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Wed, 11 Mar 2015 18:32:41 -0700 |
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Today, Kevin Mac Donnell and I discussed the dedications Sam Clemens
wrote for his books. When he mentioned that Sam’s daughter Jean was the
only family member to whom Sam never dedicated a book, I immediately
checked the entry on “dedications” I had written for _Critical Companion
to Mark Twain (the revised edition of _Mark Twain A to Z_). I was
pleased to be able to one-up Kevin by telling him my book said that Sam
dedicated _Tom Sawyer Abroad_ to Jean. That didn’t sound quite right to
Kevin, so we both ran to our various early editions of TSA to confirm
what I had written. Result: Neither of us could find any dedication in
any early copy of TSA. Oops ... that was embarrassing; maybe I should
have kept my mouth shut. I then did what any scholar who finds an error
in one of his books would do: I looked for someone else to blame.
Happily, I found at least a partial explanation of my apparent error in
the 1982 University of California “Mark Twain Library” edition of the
novella, in which these words face page 1:
To
Jean Clemens
with the affectionate admiration
of her Papa
Where, I wondered did that come from? It’s not in the 1980
Iowa-California omnibus edition of Tom Sawyer books, which like the
later Mark Twain Library edition of TSA was edited by John C. Gerber.
Gerber’s explanatory note on page 178 and Robert Hirst’s note on texts
on page 193 of the latter edition provide the answer. Sam wrote the
dedication for the book but didn’t get it to his publishers in time to
be used. In a letter to Livy of April 16, 1894, he explained that his
failure was due to both Webster’s and Chatto’s editions coming out much
sooner than he had expected. He added that he had instructed Websterco’s
president, Frederick Hall, “to see to it that the second edition
contains it [the dedication].” Unfortunately, Websterco went bust before
a second edition of TSA could be made. Sam’s instruction to Hall was
then apparently forgotten until his letter to Livy was noticed around
1981, in time for the Mark Twain Library edition.
My reason for posting this note is to ask if anyone has ever seen the
dedication to Jean in _any_ edition of TSA published before 1982.
Meanwhile, I’ll ponder the question of whether what I wrote for
_Critical Companion_ is correct or incorrect. Rather than open that
issue to public debate, I’ll restrict the voting to myself.
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