5 May 1874 • Elmira, N.Y. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 01082)
Business. A San Francisco friend sends me a “Chronicle,” whereby it appears that only my portions of the book are used in the play. It says “The story of Philip, Alice & all their friends is entirely left out.—2explanatory note It is a one-character play, like Rip Van Winkle.3explanatory note The one character is Sellers.
Now what I want to propose is this: & it seems fair to me. You make over to me your ownership in our dramatic copyright (duly in writing,) so far as it concerns characters created by me in the Gilded Age, & I will convey to you my owner dramatic ownership in all the characters created by you. You can then dramatize or permit to be Ⓐemendation then use your characters in a drama, if you wish to, include any or all Ⓐemendationif you wish to, & use also any of mine except Sellers, & Ⓐemendation & I will buy this play of Densmore, re-write it if it is worth it—or burn it, & write one myself & enjoin D. from playing his.4explanatory note
I know Mr. D. mighty well & he shan’t run any play on my brains. He Ⓐemendation is the chap who finished Bret Harte’s story for him without Bret’s asking it.5explanatory note Give me an early answer to my proposition. If you like it, please send me a copy of our printed dramatic copy-right page.
Not Business.—We are packing trunks—we remove to the farm today.6explanatory note Livy ventured to sit through two acts of Rip Van Winkle last night, & got hesrself pretty full of back-aches; but she is tolerably well this morning again. If you & Susie will only give us a call at the farm presently, we would be a couple of entirely delighted people.
Chas. D. Warner Esq. | Editor “Courant” | Hartford | Conn in upper left corner: Personal. | rule postmarked: elmira n. y. may Ⓐemendation 5
Clemens answered the following letter (CU-MARK):
The Gilded Age dramatization is discussed in the notes below. In addition, Warner’s letter included allusions to: the February–April 1874 rebellion in Saga, Japan, in which samurai retainers of the former daimyo (or feudal lord) tried in vain to restore his authority and their own privileges; Edward H. House (see 22 May 74 to Bliss, n. 1click to open link); the death, on 19 April, of Abner Jackson, the president since 1867 of Trinity College in Hartford; Austin Cornelius Dunham (see 3 Oct 74 to Howells, n. 3click to open link); and Baddeck, and That Sort of Thing, just published, which described a trip Warner had taken with Twichell. Warner’s article on “spring in New England” did not appear in the Atlantic Monthly (Norman, 423–24; Hane, 113–14; “Japan,” New York Times, 30 Apr 74, 2; Trumbull, 1:443; Warner 1874; BAL , 8:21128).
Albert Bigelow Paine reported that Clemens learned of the San Francisco Gilded Age play from Joseph T. Goodman, who
had seen a play announced there, presenting the character of Colonel Sellers, dramatized by Gilbert S. Densmore and played by John T. Raymond. Goodman immediately wrote Clemens; also a letter came from Warner, in Hartford, who had noticed in San Francisco papers announcements of the play. (MTB, 1:517)
Gilbert B. Densmore (also misidentified as G. S. Densmore and R. G. Densmore, and by Clemens as J. B. Densmore [ BAL , 3:7271; Scharnhorst 1995, 87; Harte 1997, 81 n. 5, 99 n. 6; L5 , 369 n. 4; 3 Nov 74 to the editor of the Hartford Evening Post click to open link]) was a long-term editor and currently also co-owner and drama critic of the San Francisco Golden Era, a literary weekly. His “Gilded Age” was announced as “in preparation” on 17 April 1874 (“Amusements,” San Francisco Chronicle, 4). It was staged successfully at the California Theater on 22–24 April, and again on 2 May. Since it is unlikely that Goodman was in San Francisco at that time (see 23 Apr 74 to Finlay, n. 5click to open link), Paine’s report that he had sent the alert was incorrect, probably a result of Clemens’s inaccurate recollection. The helpful “San Francisco friend” was Denis E. McCarthy, formerly co-proprietor with Goodman of the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise and now the managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. He sent Clemens the long front-page article in which, on 26 April, the Chronicle’s drama critic reported that Densmore
has managed to select with great care and discretion so much of Mark Twain’s big book, “The Gilded Age,” as is fit for stage presentation, and to weave it with new material of his own into an excellent play. The story of Philip, Alice and all their friends is entirely left out. The political allusions are condensed, and the characters of Silas and Clay Hawkins brought into proper theatrical prominence. Thus a really good specimen of modern comedy has been made from a very unmanageable volume. . . . A great share in this happy result is undoubtedly due to Mr. Raymond’s capital performance of the part of “Colonel Sellers.” He has seized upon and elaborated the idea into one of those characters that become absolutely identified with the name of their first impersonators, and it is not likely that in this city any one will think it wise to attempt to rival him in its portrayal. The boundless confidence, courage and coolness of the whimsical Colonel, his readiness, wit and honesty, are each invested with due importance by Mr. Raymond, who is not at any time likely to obtain a part better suited to his idiosyncrasies. . . .
The play . . . will afford Mr. Raymond a capital star part wherever he may happen to go. (“Footlight Flashes,” 1)
Warner and Clemens, on 19 May 1873, had requested a copyright on the title The Gilded Age: A Drama by submitting it and a synopsis of an unwritten play to the Library of Congress (Copyright Office Receipt No. 5604D, CtHT-W). This copyright was never perfected, however, since that joint play was never written, published, and deposited at the library. In July 1874, Clemens copyrighted his own Gilded Age play (see 15 and 16 July 74 to Watt, n. 3click to open link; “Gilbert B. Densmore,” San Francisco Bulletin, 23 Dec 1900, Special Section, 16; Cummins, 415; Langley: 1865, 148; 1873, 192; 1874, 202; “The Gilded Age,” Hartford Courant, 1 May 74, 2; L1 , 242 n. 2; “Amusements,” San Francisco Chronicle, 20–25 Apr 74, 30 Apr 74, 3, 4; 3 Nov 74 to the editor of the Hartford Evening Post click to open link, nn. 2, 4; 16 Feb 75 to Spofford, n. 3click to open link; Thomason, 60–64, 306–13, 317–18).
Dion Boucicault’s play, which comic actor Joseph Jefferson (1829–1905) made a regular feature of the American stage from 1866 until 1904. The Clemenses had just attended a performance by Jefferson at the Elmira Opera House (see the last paragraph of this letter). While in London in 1873, Clemens had consulted Boucicault about dramatizing The Gilded Age (Elmira Advertiser: “Amusements,” 4 May 74, 4; “Rip Van Winkle,” 5 May 74, 1; L5 , 368).
Warner agreed to this carefully revised proposal. (Clemens made his canceled words nearly impossible to recover by imposing false ascenders and descenders on them.) In a letter of 1 June 1911 to Albert Bigelow Paine, Twichell confirmed that Clemens offered Warner no payment:
Mr. F. E. Bliss, Pres. of the American Publishing Co., says that Mr. Warner told him that Mark had paid him nothing for relinquishing his right to share the profits of “The Gilded Age” play, that such is his distinct recollection.
My own memory, I find, affords me no means of either questioning or affirming the accuracy of the statement. I do however recall Mark’s saying that he had told Warner that he thought that he (Mark) ought to have more than half of the profits. I know too, that there was some unpleasantness between them about it, but what the ultimate settlement they reached, I have quite forgotten—If I ever knew. (Chester L. Davis, Sr.)
Twichell’s “own memory” was probably imperfect: his remark about “half of the profits” suggests that any “unpleasantness” between Warner and Clemens must have occurred during early discussions about royalties from the Gilded Age book, not the play. (By the time the book contract was signed, in May 1873, they had agreed to share the royalties equally.) In any event, there is no evidence of lasting hard feelings (see also Schirer, 42). Soon after writing to Warner, Clemens contacted Denis McCarthy to negotiate a settlement with Densmore and forestall any further productions of the unauthorized play. He offered to pay Densmore $100 for a copy of his script (but actually sent him a check for double that amount, and another $200 when his own play proved successful). It was Raymond who provided Clemens with the copy, at Densmore’s request, but it is not clear when that took place: see 3 Nov 74 to the editor of the Hartford Evening Post click to open link for accounts by Clemens, Raymond, and Densmore of what occurred, and for Clemens’s description of how he wrote his version of the play.
Clemens, Harte, and Densmore had all contributed to the Golden Era in the 1860s. From 16 March through 27 July 1873 the Golden Era serialized “Mliss,” a composite work consisting of an extract from an unfinished earlier story by Harte (see below) combined with an unauthorized forty-seven-chapter addition by Densmore. Densmore’s byline did not appear until chapter 20, on 27 April 1873, although his segment in fact began with chapter 11, on 30 March. Harte complained to Osgood on 2 April 1873:
I am very much irritated by the discovery of another California swindle upon me. In 1860, I wrote the “Story of M’liss,” . . . for the Golden Era a weekly San Francisco paper with which I was connected. Three years after (1863), at the request of the proprietor, Col. Lawrence, I attempted to create a longer story or novel out of it, but after writing 9 or 10 chapters I wound it up in disgust. . . . I find now that the Golden Era is reprinting the second story in their columns with an advertisement saying that it will be completed in “sixty-two” chapters. Of course this means a swindle on the public, or a forgery. (TxU-Hu, in Harte 1997, 80)
The composite work was reissued in New York as a fifty-cent paperback later in 1873; in April 1875 Harte won a lawsuit to have it suppressed (Davis and Lillis, 14:1201–2; “The Courts,” New York Tribune, 27 Apr 75, 2). Previous accounts of the bibliographic and textual history of this work have not been accurate. Harte’s original story, comprising four chapters, appeared in the Golden Era in 1860 under the title “The Work on Red Mountain.” In 1863, he expanded the sketch to ten chapters, which were serialized in the Golden Era under the title “The Story of M’liss: An Idyll of Red Mountain.” From these ten chapters, the 1873 unauthorized Golden Era version extracted chapters 1–6, part of chapter 7, and chapters 9 and 10. The 1873 serialized chapters were misnumbered, however: the story ultimately comprised nine of Harte’s chapters and forty-seven of Densmore’s, for a total of fifty-six, not the fifty-eight its chapter numbers erroneously indicated. The 1873 book version corrected the Golden Era’s chapter total, acknowledging in a footnote the contribution of “another hand” but mistakenly crediting Harte with ten rather than nine chapters, and citing him alone on the title page (Harte: 1860; 1863; 1997, 81 n. 5, 110–11; Harte and Densmore 1873 [bib13552], 1873 [bib13553]; Walker 1969, 110, 126–32, 150, 152–57; BAL , 3:7271; Scharnhorst 1995, 78, 87).
The Clemenses were moving from Mrs. Langdon’s house in central Elmira to Quarry Farm, on East Hill, where Susan and Theodore W. Crane, Olivia’s sister and brother-in-law, lived. Susan had just built Clemens “the loveliest study” there (11 June 74 to the Twichellsclick to open link; L4 , 366–67 n. 3).
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L6 , 126–30; MTLP , 82.
donated in January 1950 by Mary Barton of Hartford, a close friend of the Warners’, who had owned it since at least 1938.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.