Famous funny fellows

by William Montgomery Clemens

After this, Clemens became a reporter and correspondent, writing to the Territorial Enterprise and other papers, and occasionally doing work at the case. He wrote at times over the nom de plume of Mark Twain, a title he adopted from his experiences as a pilot. It was during these years, between 1862 and 1866, that Mark perpetrated many broad and practical jokes, using his journalistic position as a channel. These publications gave him considerable notoriety in the West, and especially on the Pacific coast. For several years he was local editor of the Virginia City Enterprise, but in 1864 he removed to San Francisco, where he was offered a good position on a paper there. In 1865 he went to the Sandwich Islands, to write up the sugar plantations. His letters were very readable and were published mostly in the Sacramento Union. All this time Mark was struggling with legitimate literary work, and published occasional sketches in literary weeklies, which were widely copied. On his return from Hawaii he lectured for a short time in California and Nevada. Some of his sketches having attracted attention in the East, Mark sailed for New York in the early part of 1867, and published a small volume of sketches, entitled The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras, and Other Sketches. The book sold well in the United States, and was afterwards republished in England. Nearly all the sketches that appeared in the book had previously been published in the San Francisco papers.

In 1868, Mr. Clemens formed one of a party who sailed in the steamship Quaker City, for an extended excursion to Palestine and the Holy Land. He went in the capacity of a newspaper correspondent as well as for pleasure, and wrote interesting letters while abroad to the California papers. Returning to America he gathered his letters together and re-wrote them in book form, which he called Innocents Abroad, or the New Pilgrim’s Progress. The work was very funny, yet notwithstanding the rollicking satire, and laugh-provoking character of the book, the author met with the greatest difficulty in getting it published. He sent his manuscript to the leading publishers of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and they all refused it. Mark’s literary vanity was sorely wounded, and he was about determined to throw his book into the fire when a literary friend, Albert D. Richardson, now deceased, to whom he handed the manuscript, pronounced it very clever and offered to take it with him to Hartford, Connecticut, where was located the American Publishing Company, a firm that had issued several books for Richardson. After much talk and discussion among the directors of the publishing company, the book was finally issued. Its success was extraordinary, and since its publication over 200,000 copies of the book have been sold. The publishing company cleared $75,000 by the venture.

In 1869 Twain tried journalism for a time in Buffalo, where he held an editorial position on a daily paper. While there he fell in love with a young lady, a sister of “Dan”—made famous in Innocents Abroad—but her father, a gentleman of wealth and position, looked unfavorably upon his daughter’s alliance with a Bohemian literary character.

“I like you,” he said to Mark, “but what do I know of your antecedents? Who is there to answer for you, anyhow?”

After reflecting a few moments, Mark thought some of his old California friends would speak a good word for him. The prospective father-in-law wrote letters of inquiry to several residents of San Francisco, to whom Clemens referred him, and with one exception, the letters denounced him bitterly, especially deriding his capacity for becoming a good husband. Mark sat besides his fiancee when the letters were read aloud by the old gentleman. There was a dreadful silence for a moment, and then Mark stammered: “Well, that’s pretty rough on a fellow, anyhow?”

His betrothed came to the rescue however, and overturned the mass of testimony against him by saying, “I’ll risk you, anyhow.”

The terrible father-in-law lived in Elmira, New York, and there Mark was married. He had told his friends in the newspaper office at Buffalo, to select him a suite of rooms in a first-class boarding house in the city, and to have a carriage at the depot to meet the bride and groom. Mark knew they would do it, and gave himself no more anxiety about it. When he reached Buffalo, he found a handsome carriage, a beautiful span of horses and a driver in livery. They drove him up to a handsome house on an aristocratic street, and as the door was opened, there were the parents of the bride to welcome them home. The old folks had arrived on the quiet by a special train. After Mark had gone through the house and examined its elegant finishings, he was notified officially that he had been driven by his own coachman, in his own carriage, to his own house. They say tears came to his wonderfully dark and piercing eyes, and that all he could say was “Well, this is a first-class swindle.”

Not long after his marriage, Mark settled down in Hartford, and invested capital in insurance companies there. His second book, Roughing It, appeared in 1871, and had almost as large a sale as its predecessor. He visited England a few months later, and arranged for the publication of his works there in four volumes. On his return he issued his third book, in partnership with Charles Dudley Warner, which was styled The Gilded Age. This was followed by the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a book for boys, in 1876. These books all commanded an immense sale, and several editions have been exhausted. The American Publishing Company of Hartford represented these works in this country, Chatto & Windus published them in England, and Mark’s continental publisher was Tauchnitz of Leipzig.

April 11, 1878, Mark Twain sailed for Europe on the steamship Holsatia. He was accompanied by his family, and after drifting about for some months on foreign shores, settled down to spend the summer in Germany. In 1879 he returned to his home in Hartford, and after several months of work produced another book, A Tramp Abroad. This work had a ready and a very large sale, and has become quite popular. In 1881 he issued another book through a Boston house, The Prince and Pauper. This also has had a large sale in this and other countries.

Among his other accomplishments Clemens is a politician, and has done good service on the stump for the Republican party. For all this he is the proud possessor of the title of Honorable.