> Despite Horst
> Kruse's excellent article offering reasons to believe Twain's own story
> of the name's origin, there is still nothing to prove that Captain Isaiah
> Sellers, or anyone else, for that matter, ever used the name Mark Twain
> in any Mississippi River Valley newspaper correspondence.

   Interestingly, Clemens' story does contradict itself a bit... if you look
at
Chapter 50 of Life on the Mississippi, Twain does quote the original letter
sent by Isaiah Sellers that he burlesqued--

-----
   The original MS. of it, in the captain's own hand, has been sent to me
from
   New Orleans. It reads as follows--

      VICKSBURG May 4, 1859.

      'My opinion for the benefit of the citizens of New Orleans: The water
is
higher this far up than it has been since 8. My opinion is that the water
will
be feet deep in Canal street before the first of next June. Mrs. Turner's
plantation at the head of Big Black Island is all under water, and it has
not
been since 1815.

      'I. Sellers.'
-----

   We can't see the manuscript but it is interesting that Clemens himself
notes
that it was signed "I. Sellers" and not "Mark Twain."  Perhaps the editors
of
the paper changed the name to the pseudonym, or perhaps it is true that
Sellers never published under the pseudonym.

   In any case, it's a great pseudonym which would be a shame to waste and I
plan on stealing it when Clemens dies and fades into obscurity.

 Alan Eliasen