Dear Matt & Max--

That quote appears to come from here:
*https://www.radicalteatowel.com/radical-history-blog/the-radical-politics-of-mark-twain/
<https://www.radicalteatowel.com/radical-history-blog/the-radical-politics-of-mark-twain/>*
.

I hope this is helpful.

Best regards--

Warren

Warren Miller, CPA, CFA
Lexington, Virginia


On Wed, Dec 8, 2021 at 1:45 PM Matthew Seybold <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I'm pretty sure the source of this quote is actually Helen Scott, from an
> essay originally published in the *International Socialist Review *in 2000
> and republished on the Socialist Worker website some years later. This
> quote made its way to Wikipedia, into a paragraph that has been plagiarized
> frequently by blogs and bios, and though the source is part of the Wiki
> entry, the plagiarists often remove the footnote and adjust the phrasing
> to make it seem like those are Twain's own words.
>
> The original Helen Scott essay is, in my opinion, a pretty nice revisionist
> Twain mini-bio, and I think her characterization of the Elmirans Twain came
> in contact with is accurate. For more about them, you can see my essays on
> "The Gospel of Revolt."
>
> https://socialistworker.org/2010/04/21/the-twain-they-didnt-teach
>
> https://marktwainstudies.com/about/mark-twain-in-elmira/
>
> *Matt Seybold, PhD*
> Associate Professor of American Literature & Mark Twain Studies
> Scholar-in-Residence, Center for Mark Twain Studies
> Editor, MarkTwainStudies.org
> Host, The American Vandal Podcast
> <https://marktwainstudies.com/the-american-vandal-podcast/>
>
> Peterson Chapel Vestry, Cowles Hall
> [log in to unmask]
> MattSeybold.com
> <https://www.elmira.edu/>
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 8, 2021 at 12:30 PM Max Wallace <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Hello Twain scholars. I am working on a book for Hachette about Helen
> > Keller’s political crusades and I have been researching Twain’s
> friendship
> > with HK.
> >
> > In the course of my research, I have frequently come across an alleged
> > Twain quote about Olivia Langdon but I have not been able to track down a
> > primary source in any credible biography or Twain quotation database. It
> > makes me wonder if the quotation is perhaps linked to one dubious
> original
> > source or whether it has a genuine root in an obscure Twain speech or
> > letter.
> >
> > To quote from one example:
> >
> > “Through his marriage to the liberal activist Olivia Langdon, Twain came
> > into close contact with a wider range of radical circles: ‘socialists,
> > principled atheists and activists for women’s rights and social equality’
> > is how he described them.”
> >
> > Does this sound at all familiar? Thanks very much.
> >
> > - Max Wallace
> >
>