23 December 1870 • Buffalo, N.Y. (Mott 1957, 366–67, UCCL 02786)
Oh, please don’t fail to get this delicious thing in—now don’t. Don’t wait to ask the SheldonsⒶemendation whether they’ll back me for $1,000—I hereby give them authority to secure themselves amply by means of my share of my pamphlet which they are about to publish.1explanatory note Or let them call for the money if it is won, &Ⓐemendation I’ll furnish it instantly. I’ve got these Enquirer idiots just where I wanted somebody—don’t you see why? Because half of the people don’t know now whether to believe I wrote that thing or not, or whether it was from the Review, or whether it is all a sell, & no criticism ever was in the London paper. Now, over the shoulders of this Cincinnati fool, I’ll make the whole thing straight.
Don’t let that paragraph get lost for your life.
I’ve got the original London Saturday Review of Oct. 8 with the silly original critique in it right under my nose at this moment—& I’ll lock it up till that idiot dares to call for it—which he never will!2explanatory note
Mark Twain’s (Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance. The “delicious thing” was the manuscript of “A Falsehood”: see the next note.
Reacting to Clemens’s “An Entertaining Article” (3 Dec 70 to Redpath, n. 4click to open link), the Cincinnati Enquirer of 17 December had remarked:
Mark Twain at last sees that the Saturday Review’s criticism of his Innocents Abroad was not serious, and he is intensely mortified at the thought of having been so badly sold. He takes the only course left him, and in the last Galaxy claims that he wrote the criticism himself, and published it in the Galaxy to sell the public. This is ingenious, but unfortunately it is not true. If any of our readers will take the trouble to call at this office we will show them the original article in the Saturday Review of October 8, which, on comparison, will be found to be identical with the one published in the Galaxy. The best thing for Mark to do will be to admit that he was sold, and say no more about it.(“Notes and Notions,” 4)
In “A Falsehood,” in his Galaxy “Memoranda” for February 1871, Clemens reprinted the Enquirer item and issued the following challenge:
If the “Enquirer” people, through any agent, will produce at The Galaxy office a London “Saturday Review” of October 8th, containing an “article which, on comparison, will be found to be identical with the one published in The Galaxy,” I will pay to thatagent five hundred dollars cash. Moreover, if at any specified time I fail to produce at the same place a copy of the London “Saturday Review” of October 8th, containing a lengthy criticism upon the “Innocents Abroad,” entirely different, in every paragraph and sentence, from the one I published in The Galaxy, I will pay to the “Enquirer’s” agent another five hundred dollars cash. I offer Sheldon & Co., publishers, 500 Broadway, New York, as my “backers.” . . .
In next month’s Galaxy, if they do not send the agent and take this chance at making a thousand dollars where they do not need to risk a single cent, they shall be exposed. I think the Cincinnati “Enquirer” must be edited by children. (SLC 1871, 319)
On 19 January 1871, shortly after the February Galaxy issued, the Enquirer responded:
We fear that our relations with “Mark Twain” are becoming serious. We used to consider him a funny man, but we find him as matter-of-fact as a last-year’s bird’s-nest. . . .
Mr. Twain published in the Galaxy what purported to be a review of his “Innocents Abroad,” taken from the Saturday Review. He treated it with great gravity, and we professed to believe that he had been sold. The Hon. Mr. Twain laughed at us, and declared upon his word of honor that he had written it himself. As he had lied about it in the first place we thought that there would be no harm in doing a little additional lying, and therefore we asserted that the article in question did appear in the Saturday Review of October 8, and offered to show it to any inquiring person who might call at our office. Nobody ever called. . . . Now we have Mr. Twain in the Galaxy copying our article, and crying in a loud voice . . .
Now, this is all bosh. As Mark Twain never told the truth in his life, how are we to know that he is not lying about his inordinate desire to gamble? . . . We are not to be “bluffed.” We deputize George, the Count Joannes, to defend us in this matter. If he is convinced that our position is tenable, and that the Saturday Review, of October 8, will bear us out, he is authorized to cover any money which he finds in the hands of Sheldon & Co. to the credit of Marcus Aurelius Twain. As for Mr. Twain’s threat of exposure, we care nothing. . . . Mr. Twain ought to have more respect for his infant son than to be making a “noodle” of himself. Upon the whole, we have about concluded that the “Memoranda” of the Galaxy is edited by a lunatic. (“Notes and Notions,” 4)
The Enquirer’s proposed representative was George Jones (1810–79), a self-aggrandizing lawyer and actor who used the stage name “Count Joannes” and was a figure of ridicule in both of his professions. Clemens let the matter drop: he did not publish “Memoranda” in the March Galaxy and made no mention of the Enquirer in the brief final “Memoranda” he published in April (Joseph, Squires, and Louis, 510; Bryan, 1:681; Odell, 7:546, 583, 605–6, 9:28, 10:72, 388–89; “Joannes,” New York Tribune, 14 Jan 71, 4).
Mott 1957, 366–67. A footnote indicates that the letter was “dated December 23 1870.” The date has been abbreviated according to Clemens’s usual practice.
L4 , 283–285.
The MS, part of the Willard Church Collection in 1938, is not known to survive (see the commentary to 9 Feb 70 to Churchclick to open link).
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.