Thank you all for responding to my previous message and the PDFs. My
apologies for that subject line. It didn't look like that when I hit
the send button. Ms. Shillingsburg's concluding paragraph reinforces
my contention that Charles Casey is and was The Mark Twain Club of
Carrington Castle and that Twain's tale in chapter 25 of "Following the
Equator" is a fabrication. I suggest that the club badge is born from
the Bendigo keepsake letter cover.
Casey's work on the Great Pyramid, with its series of revisions,
indicates his attraction to inventing complex constructs, just the kind
of thing the Mark Twain Club seems to have been. Casey's letter to
U.S. Grant demonstrates his dissatisfaction with living in Ireland and
his desire to be associated with some form of Americana. What better
way to do that than to immerse oneself in Mark Twain.
It's possible that Casey was as much a story teller as Twain but he is
registered as the owner of 5 acres of land in County Carlow and
residing in Pollerton Castle. The castle remains on a 2 acre estate
and is the home of R. Healy and Son Funeral Directors.