Did the builders of the first typewriter fully appreciate the tremendous truth contained in these words? If so, it is hard to believe that they would have confined all reference to the business man to a single sentence in an obscure portion of their first catalogue. This one sentence, in this place, seems to lack the ring of conviction. It makes one wish that the typewriter men of 1874 could live again to witness the typewriter wonders of 1923, and see how many-fold greater has been the fruit of their labors than anything of which they dreamed.
So much for what the builders thought of their own product. But what did the buyers and the users think? We turn eagerly for information on this point to the testimonials, of which this old catalogue contains several. But the first one that meets our eyes engrosses us so completely that we straightway forget about all the rest. It is from no less a person than “Mark Twain,” and this is what he says:
Hartford, March 19, 1875.
Gentlemen:
Please do not use my name in any way. Please do not even divulge the fact that I own a machine. I have entirely stopped using the Type-Writer, for the reason that I never could write a letter with it to anybody without receiving a request by return mail that I would not only describe the machine but state what progress I had made in the use of it, etc., etc. I don’t like to write letters, and so I don’t want people to know that I own this curiosity breeding little joker.
Yours truly,
Saml. L. Clemens.
Certainly a queer “testimonial.” And we are glad that the selling agents, in spite of Mark Twain’s prohibition, had the “nerve” to publish it. In course of time Mark Twain overcame his reticence, and many years after, in his “Autobiography,” he tells in his own inimitable manner all about his first typewriter. It seems that he bought it in Boston late in the autumn of 1874, when in company with that other famous humorist D. R. Locke, better known as “Petroleum V. Nasby.” He and Nasby saw the strange looking device in the window of the Remington store, were drawn in by curiosity, and Mark Twain purchased one on the spot. What Nasby’s impressions were of his purchase Mark Twain does not tell us, but we know that they must have been deep and vivid, for only a short time later we find Nasby a member of the firm which for a time controlled the sale of the Remington Typewriter. Shortly afterward Mark Twain had one of his manuscripts type-copied on this typewriter. The “Autobiography” says that this book was “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” but in this statement, based only on his memory of the long ago, Mark Twain must have been mistaken. A letter of his, written many years earlier, proves that the book was “Life on the Mississippi.” However, the exact identity of the book is a minor matter. In any case, Mark Twain was unquestionably the first author who ever submitted a typewritten manuscript to a publisher, a practice now universal. And it accords with the importance of this great step in progress that this original typewritten manuscript should have been a literary masterpiece.
MARK TWAIN’S FIRST TYPEWRITTEN LETTER
Written December 9, 1874.
Copyright by Harper & Bros.
BJUYT KIOP M LKJHGFDSA:QWERTYUIOP:_-98VE6432QW .RT HA
HARTFORD, DEC. 9,