"Rather than open that issue to public debate, I'll restrict the voting to
myself."

Always a good choice Kent.

Susan

Susan Bailey
Co author
The Twain Shall Meet
<http://www.amazon.com/Twain-Shall-Meet-Granddaughter-Gabrilowitsch/dp/1499799497/ref=sr_1_1/191-7847938-3534132?ie=UTF8&qid=1415889321&sr=8-1&keywords=the+twain+shall+meet+susan+bailey>
Twain Page <https://www.facebook.com/marktwainsgranddaughter>
www.marktwainonline.com
Greenville, SC

On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 9:32 PM, Kent Rasmussen <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> Today, Kevin Mac Donnell and I discussed the dedications Sam Clemens
> wrote for his books. When he mentioned that Sam's daughter Jean was the
> only family member to whom Sam never dedicated a book, I immediately
> checked the entry on "dedications" I had written for _Critical Companion
> to Mark Twain (the revised edition of _Mark Twain A to Z_).  I was
> pleased to be able to one-up Kevin by telling him my book said that Sam
> dedicated _Tom Sawyer Abroad_ to Jean. That didn't sound quite right to
> Kevin, so we both ran to our various early editions of TSA to confirm
> what I had written. Result: Neither of us could find any dedication in
> any early copy of TSA. Oops ... that was embarrassing; maybe I should
> have kept my mouth shut. I then did what any scholar who finds an error
> in one of his books would do: I looked for someone else to blame.
> Happily, I found at least a partial explanation of my apparent error in
> the 1982 University of California "Mark Twain Library" edition of the
> novella, in which these words face page 1:
>
> To
> Jean Clemens
> with the affectionate admiration
> of her Papa
>
> Where, I wondered did that come from? It's not in the 1980
> Iowa-California omnibus edition of Tom Sawyer books, which like the
> later Mark Twain Library edition of TSA was edited by John C. Gerber.
> Gerber's explanatory note on page 178 and Robert Hirst's note on texts
> on page 193 of the latter edition provide the answer. Sam wrote the
> dedication for the book but didn't get it to his publishers in time to
> be used. In a letter to Livy of April 16, 1894, he explained that his
> failure was due to both Webster's and Chatto's editions coming out much
> sooner than he had expected. He added that he had instructed Websterco's
> president, Frederick Hall, "to see to it that the second edition
> contains it [the dedication]." Unfortunately, Websterco went bust before
> a second edition of TSA could be made. Sam's instruction to Hall was
> then apparently forgotten until his letter to Livy was noticed around
> 1981, in time for the Mark Twain Library edition.
>
> My reason for posting this note is to ask if anyone has ever seen the
> dedication to Jean in _any_ edition of TSA published before 1982.
> Meanwhile, I'll ponder the question of whether what I wrote for
> _Critical Companion_ is correct or incorrect. Rather than open that
> issue to public debate, I'll restrict the voting to myself.
>