We discussed whether Jim Smiley was a real person; note this from twainqoutes Mark Twain quotations - Jumping Frog
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Mark Twain quotations - Jumping Frog
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He was a real character, and his name was Greeley. The way he got the name of Smiley was this -- I wrote the story for the New York Saturday Gazette, a perishing weekly so-called literary newspaper -- a home of poverty; it was the last number -- the jumping frog killed it. They had not enough "G's", so they changed Greeley's name to "Smiley." That's a fact.
- "Mark Twain Put to the Question" interview, Adelaide South Australian Register, 10/14/1895
- B. Clay Shannon
