i cross-posted jim zwick's message to H-West. anyone care to answer will
bagley's query?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Subject: Re: Mark Twain Project Funding Crisis
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997
From: wlbagley <[log in to unmask]>

The funding crisis for the Bancroft's Mark Twain Project is indeed sad,
but there's a certain irony, too. The Twain project has been the focus of
research (and spending) at the Bancroft for years, at the cost of the
library's many other collections associated with other, less glamourous
figures. Could the money have been better spent working with the vast
Mexican archive collection H. H. Bancroft acquired or developing the early
California records that have languished in the monetary rain shadow of
America's most popular humorist? The real tragedy is that public funding
for simply maintaining historical records was never great and now is in
danger of vanishing altogether.

I came within an ace of becoming a Twain scholar myself, but I think the
money could have been better spent preserving and developing the records
of ordinary, unheralded early Californians than producing the umpteenth
edition of _Connecticut Yankee_ or, God forbid, _Joan of Arc_, however
erudite. Also, my information on this situation is largely by
word-of-mouth, and I'd like anyone who knows better to set me straight.

Will Bagley