We now seem to have four correct answers, and since Bob Hirst got two of 
them and the other two were split between Kerry Driscoll and Barb Schmidt, 
that makes Bob the winner, and his book hits the mail tomorrow.

Sharon McCoy raises a good point about the 1853 letter home from NY (it 
reads like a rehearsal or rough draft for Pap Finn's rant about the 
well-dressed black gentleman carrying the silver-headed cane --who can even 
vote!). But I had in mind a piece of writing (letter or otherwise) that 
Twain wrote with the intention of publication. I'm not sure the letter home 
to his family fits that profile. Or does it?

On a slightly different note, a sort of follow-up to question #4...  I don't 
know about other Twainians, but I wince whenever I run across Twain using 
the n-word in his post-1885 letters or writings. The use of the word in HF 
has been repeatedly debated, with the consensus view being that he used the 
word in context or else with intended and effective irony, and it has even 
been eloquently defended by black commentators. But Twain's own non-literary 
use of the word later on makes clear he was not the color-blind pure-hearted 
post-racial saint that some would like to imagine. Even when he doesn't 
actually use the word, Twain's own racism shines through, as in his comment 
that he was the laziest white man that he knew. His 1907 comment to Dorothy 
Quick isn't a hateful use of the term, but it surely isn't benign either. 
And his 1902 comment about black cigar-makers in Cuba licking cigars during 
their manufacture and possibly spreading diseases is offensive, even if 
biologically accurate (would Twain have bothered to make the comment had 
they been white?). For his era, Twain was as progressive in his racial views 
as anyone (but not more so, I'd suggest), but has anyone closely catalogued 
his post-1885 comments on race, his use of the n-word in private letters 
after 1885, and published a study of his racial attitudes focusing on this 
period?

Kevin
@
Mac Donnell Rare Books
9307 Glenlake Drive
Austin TX 78730
512-345-4139
Member: ABAA, ILAB
*************************
You may browse our books at
www.macdonnellrarebooks.com

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Hirst" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, May 02, 2010 9:09 AM
Subject: that makes it two wrong


> Barb Schmidt points out that the 1 November 1856 Snodgrass letter
> beats the "River Intelligence."
>
> Kerry Driscoll points out that Letter IV of "Letters from the Earth"
> (October-November 1909) beats the letter to Dorothy Quick.
>
> Now why did I stay up all night to get my answers?
>


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