This was followed by a lecture trip through California and Nevada, which gave unmistakable evidence that he had the “gift” of humor.
His fame, however, was really made by the publication of “Innocents Abroad” (Hartford, 1869), 125,000 copies of which were sold in three years. This book is a brilliant, humorous account of the travels, experiences and opinions of a party of tourists to the Mediterranean, Egypt, Palestine, France and Italy.
His next literary work of note was the publication of “Roughing It” (Hartford, 1872), which shook the sides of readers all over the United States. This contained inimitable sketches of the rough border life and personal experiences in California, Nevada and Utah. In fact all Mark Twain’s literary work which bears the stamp of permanent worth and merit is personal and autobiographical. He is never so successful in works that are purely of an imaginative character.
In 1873, in conjunction with Charles Dudley Warner, he produced a story entitled the “Gilded Age” which was dramatized and had a marked success on the stage. His other well-known works are: “Sketches Old and New;” “Adventures of Tom Sawyer” (1876), a story of boy life in Missouri and one of his best productions, “Punch, Brothers, Punch” (1878); “A Tramp Abroad” (1880), containing some of his most humorous and successful descriptions of personal experiences on a trip through Germany and Switzerland; “The Stolen White Elephant” (1882); “Prince and the Pauper” (1882); “Life on the Mississippi” (1883); “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” (1885), a sequel to “Tom Sawyer;” “A Yankee at King Arthur’s Court” and “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc” (1896).
In 1884, he established in New York City the publishing house of C. L. Webster & Co., which issued in the following year the “Memoirs” of U. S. Grant, the profits from which publication to the amount of $350,000 were paid to Mrs. Grant in accordance with an agreement previously signed with General Grant.
By the unfortunate failure of this company in 1895, Mark Twain found himself a poor man and morally, though not legally, responsible for large sums due the creditors. Like Sir Walter Scott, he resolved to wipe out the last dollar of the debt and at once entered upon a lecturing trip around the world, which effort is proving financially a success. He is also at work upon a new book soon to be published. His home is at Hartford, Connecticut, where he has lived in delightful friendship and intercourse with Charles Dudley Warner, Harriet Beecher Stowe and other literary characters of that city. His writings have been translated into German and they have met with large sales both in England and on the continent.
JIM SMILEY’S FROG.
ELL, this yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken-cocks, and all them kind of things, till you couldn’t rest, and you couldn’t fetch nothing for him to bet on but he’d match you. He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal’klated to edercate him; and so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet he did learn him, too. He’d give him a little punch behind, and the next minute you’d see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut,—see him turn one summerset, or maybe a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of catching flies, and kept him in practice so constant, that he’d nail a fly every time as far as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do most anything; and I believe him. Why, I’ve seen him set Dan’l Webster down here on this floor,—Dan’l Webster was the name of the frog,—and sing out, “Flies, Dan’l, flies,” and quicker’n you could wink he’d spring straight up, and snake a fly off’n the counter there, and flop down on the floor again, as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn’t no idea he’d been doing any more’n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor’ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when it came to fair and square jumping on a dead level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see. Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand; and when it come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, for fellers that had traveled and been everywhere, all said he laid over any frog that ever they see.