i cross-posted jim zwick's message to H-West. anyone care to answer will bagley's query? ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Subject: Re: Mark Twain Project Funding Crisis Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 From: wlbagley <[log in to unmask]> The funding crisis for the Bancroft's Mark Twain Project is indeed sad, but there's a certain irony, too. The Twain project has been the focus of research (and spending) at the Bancroft for years, at the cost of the library's many other collections associated with other, less glamourous figures. Could the money have been better spent working with the vast Mexican archive collection H. H. Bancroft acquired or developing the early California records that have languished in the monetary rain shadow of America's most popular humorist? The real tragedy is that public funding for simply maintaining historical records was never great and now is in danger of vanishing altogether. I came within an ace of becoming a Twain scholar myself, but I think the money could have been better spent preserving and developing the records of ordinary, unheralded early Californians than producing the umpteenth edition of _Connecticut Yankee_ or, God forbid, _Joan of Arc_, however erudite. Also, my information on this situation is largely by word-of-mouth, and I'd like anyone who knows better to set me straight. Will Bagley