I am not familiar with "Brief Biography of Government" (though if you find it, I'd love to know where it might be, if you've a mind to share), but I believe that "A Difficult Conundrum" was actually a manuscript title for a piece unpublished in Twain's lifetime, a title he later changed to "Flies and Russians." I looked for this one, because the title made me think it might be related to the minstrel shows, but it wasn't. Barb Schmidt has a wonderful feature essay on twainquotes.com, "Mark Twain on Czars, Siberia, and the Russian Revolution," in which she argues that the manuscripts show signs that Twain was thinking of combining the re-named piece with "The Czar's Soliloquy," but that he chose not to. Her bibliography shows that "Flies and Russians" was first published in John Tuckey's 1972 Mark Twain's Fables of Man. I did not write it down in my notes, but I think the manuscript might be at the Twain Papers in Berkeley. And I could be completely mistaken about this, but as I recall both Lou's argument and Sundquist's, the connection is more circumstantial and contextual than directly evidential. The case was notorious in its day and would have been difficult to miss, especially with Clemens's fondness for keeping up with current events. It seems a likely deduction that the case would still have been fresh in his mind when he made the twins Italian as a way of exploring the attitudes of the townspeople and how quickly their fascination with exoticism and Old World charm and their ambivalent denial of the color line can turn murderous. It was also one of those cases that mark the turning point of racial lynching, as the reasons given for the lynching were that Italian crime syndicate members (not sure whether they were called "mafia" then), who were impossible to convict. This would seem to belong to the old style of lynching (about vigilante justice, redressing wrongs that the system could not), but as it was also unclear that the so-called mob ties were anything but racist fantasy, it also seems to belong to the new, paranoid racial lynching that was on the rise. It seems likely that Twain would be particularly interested in this case and that it would have had some influence on the writing of PW, but I can't recall there being any direct evidence. Sharon ________________________________ From: Harold Bush <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Thu, October 6, 2011 10:56:50 AM Subject: a couple of little known pieces Does anyone know of, and perhaps can direct my attention to the location of, a couple of minor pieces by MT --both mentioned by the late Lou Budd in his still amazingly relevant and useful book MT: Social Philosopher: "Brief Biography of the Government" & "A Difficult Conundrum"? (both around the turn of century) Prof. Budd also asserts in this book that Puddn'head Wilson's use of lynching was somehow spurred onward by the infamous lynching of eleven Italians in New Orleans, March 1891, but he gives no reason for this assertion. Any ideas about this possible connection; or evidence that Twain had this specific incident in mind as he wrote PW? thanks, -hb -- Harold K. Bush, Ph.D Professor of English Saint Louis University St. Louis, MO 63108 314-977-3616 (w); 314-771-6795 (h) <www.slu.edu/x23809.xml>