Bob Sutton wrote:
> On the subject of 1601, I think Mark Twain acknowledged that he
> wrote it.

"In the summer of 1876, Mark Twain began studying 16th-century English
history to prepare for writing the _The Prince and the Pauper_. ... He
wrote 1601 to experiment with Elizabethan dialogue and to amuse his friend
Joseph Twichell. ... With Mark Twain's approval, [in 1882, Erskine Scott]
Wood altered spellings to reflect late-16th-century forms [and] set the
text in old-fashioned type ... In the absence of an authoritative text,
punctuation and spellings have varied greatly ... Mark Twain never
publicly admitted authorship of 1601." _Mark Twain A to Z_, pp. 430-31.

_M. T. A to Z_ and _The M. T. Encyclopedia_ are excellent starting points
for factual questions.

thanks, larry marshburne           [log in to unmask]