1 

Clemens probably saw the following item in the “Boston Correspondence” column of the Hartford Courant of 31 May (1):

“Max Adeler” (humorist Charles Heber Clark) was an old antagonist of Clemens’s (see L4 , 120–22). George William Curtis (1824–92) was a travel writer, satirist, orator, and editor of Harper’s Weekly. The Treasure-Trove series (of twelve projected volumes) was a collection of “The Arabesques of Modern English Literature. . . . Comprising a combination of choice morceaux of Wit and Humor by the great authors,” edited by Richard Henry Stoddard (1825–1903), a leading poet, critic, and editor, and compiled by William Shepard Walsh (1854–1919), an author and editor (“William F. Gill & Co.’s New Summer Books,” Publishers’ Weekly 8 [“Book Fair Supplement,” July 75]: 32).

2 

Gill had “burnt” Clemens by denying him permission to reprint “Encounter with an Interviewer” from Lotos Leaves (see 12–28 Feb 75 to Bliss, n. 1click to open link). He had also exploited Clemens and his work on the public platform. For example, on 15 April 1874, in Boston, he read “An Interview with Mark Twain,” “a really fine illustration of the peculiar conversational manner of the distinguished humorist,” which “purported to be an attempt of Mr. Gill to get at the private history of Mr. Clemens for the purpose of having a lecture upon it, and was in reality a capital burlesque upon the ‘interviewing’ feature of journalism, so popular just now.” And on 22 April 1874, also in Boston, he delivered—to “roars of laughter”—the passage on the Italian guide from chapter 27 of The Innocents Abroad. Gill’s popular readings also included his own poetry and prose, and selections from Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, Tom Hood, Bret Harte, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and others (Boston Globe: “Reading by W. F. Gill,” 16 Apr 74, 5; “Parker-Memorial Entertainment,” 28 Sept 74, 4; Boston Evening Transcript: “Mr. Gill’s Dramatic Readings,” 23 Apr 74, 1; New York Tribune: “Personal,” 15 June 75, 4).