Letter from French girl enclosing cable about “Huck Finn”Ⓐtextual note—The Juggernaut Club—Letter from Librarian of Brooklyn Public Library in regard to “Huckleberry Finn” and “Tom Sawyer”—Mr. Clemens’s reply—The deluge of reporters trying to discover contents of that letter.Ⓐtextual note
This morning’s mail brings me from France a letter from a French friend of mine,Ⓐtextual note enclosing this New York cablegram.
[begin page 28]MARK TWAIN INTERDIT
New-York, 27 mars. (Par dépêche de notre correspondant particulier.)—Les directeurs de la bibliothèque de Brooklyn ont mis les deux derniers livres de Mark Twain à l’index pour les enfants au-dessous de quinze ans, les considérant comme malsains.
Le célèbre humoriste a écrit à des fonctionnaires une lettre pleine d’esprit et de sarcasme. Ces messieurs se refusent à la publier, sous le prétexte qu’ils n’ont pas l’autorisation de l’auteur de le faire.Ⓔexplanatory note
The letter is from a French girl who lives at St. DiéⒶtextual note, in Joan of Arc’s region. I have never seen this French girl, but she wrote me about five years ago and since then we have exchanged friendly letters three or four times a yearⒺexplanatory note. She signs herself HélèneⒶtextual note Picard, French Member. “French Member” will be better understood after I shall have explained it. The reference is to the Juggernaut Club. I invented the Juggernaut Club. I am the only male member of it. No other person of my sex is eligible to membership. My humble title is Chief Servant of the Juggernaut Club—but it is a good deal of aⒶtextual note deception. I am the real boss. I am the power behind the throne, on the throne, and in front of it, and no combination of votes is worth anything against mine. The ballot is secret, anyway. Nobody knows who votes for who, except myself. It is great fun. I have the constitution and by-laws somewhereⒺexplanatory note, butⒶtextual note I cannot put my hand on that document just now. There are several members, and I make these several members think there are a couple of dozen in the club. One of the strictest of the rules is that there shall be but one member in a country, never two. That member represents that country until she dies. She cannot resign, and she cannot be turned out. This French girl highly values her great and exclusive position as representative of France, and usually she does not sign herself Member for France, but simply signs no name at all, but just signs “France.” Among the membership is a reigning queen, a queen who is in very good standing, too, or she couldn’t stay in this club. I am the only person connected with the club who knows the name or residence of any other member of the club. My wife knew the names and countries of the membership, but that was because she and I were really one person and there were no secrets. Sometimes I was that person, sometimes she was that person. Sometimes it took both of us together to constitute that person. When I was going to appoint the American member I consulted her, and although she was not a member and had not the slightest authority in the club, she arbitrarily vetoed that girl and appointed another one in her stead. This was mutiny. This was insubordination. This was usurpation, but it had to stand, and it did.
The reason I named the club after Juggernaut, was, because I held that god in most sincere admiration and reverence, and I wanted to do him honor. He has always been misrepresented in Christian countries. When I was a Sunday-school boy we were taught to abhor him as being a sort of malignant and bloody monster, whereas if there is a better god anywhere than Juggernaut I have not heard of him. All the movements of his spirit are kind, gentle, merciful, beautiful, lovable. His temple is visited by pilgrims of all ranks, [begin page 29] from one end of India to the other, and when they step their feet over the threshold of his temple, all caste, all nobility, all royalty, all inequalities, all rank, station, wealth, cease to exist for the time being—utterly cease, and have no existence. The street-sweeper and the sovereign prince, the outcast, the mendicant, and the millionaire all stand upon the one level, and may touch each other and may eat from the same dish and drink from the same cup without defilement. For the time being, those pilgrims constitute a perfect democracyⒺexplanatory note, the only perfect democracy that has ever existed in the earth or ever will exist in it. It would improve the other gods to go to school to Juggernaut. I have never seen any subordinate member of the club except the American one.
“France” writes good English. She closes her letter with this paragraph:
SomethingⒶtextual note in a newspaper that I read this morning has surprised me very much. I have cut it out because, often, these informations are forged and, if this is the case, the slip of paper will be my excuse. Please, allow me to smile, my dear unseen Friend! I cannot imagine for a minute that you have been very sorry about it.—In France, such a measure would have for immediate result to make every one in the country buy these books, and I—for one,—am going to get them as soon as I go through Paris, perfectly sure that I’ll find them as wholesome as all you have written. I know your pen well. I know it has never been dipped in anything but clean, clear inkⒺexplanatory note.
I must go back now to that French cablegram. Its information is not exactly correct, but it is near enough. “Huck Finn” and “Tom Sawyer” are not recent books. “Tom” is more than thirty years old. The other book has been in existence twenty-one years. When “Huck” appeared, twenty-one years ago, the public library of Concord, Massachusetts,Ⓐtextual note flung him out indignantlyⒺexplanatory note, partly because he was a liar and partly because after deep meditation and careful deliberation he made up his mind on a difficult point, and said that if he’dⒶtextual note got to betray Jim or go to hell, he would go to hell—which was profanity, and those Concord purists couldn’t stand it.
After this disaster,Ⓐtextual note “Huck” was left in peace for sixteen or seventeen years. Then the public library of Denver flung him outⒺexplanatory note. He had no similar trouble until four or five months ago—that is to say,Ⓐtextual note last November. At that time I received the following letter.Ⓐtextual note
Sheepshead Bay Branch
brooklyn public library
1657 Shore Road
Brooklyn-New York, Nov. 19th, ’05.
Dear Sir,
I happened to be present the other day at a meeting of the children’s librarians of the Brooklyn Public Library. In the course of the meeting it was stated that copies of “Tom Sawyer” and “Huckleberry Finn” were to be found in some of the children’s rooms of the system. The Sup’t of the Children’s Dep’t—a conscientious and enthusiastic young woman—was greatly shocked to hear this, and at once ordered that they be transferred to the adults’ department. Upon this I [begin page 30] shamefacedly confessed to having read Huckleberry Finn aloud to my defenceless blind people, without regard to their age, color, or previous condition of servitude. I also reminded them of Brander Matthews’s opinion of the bookⒺexplanatory note, and stated the fact that I knew it almost by heart, having got more pleasure from it than from any book I have ever read, and reading is the greatest pleasure I have in life. My warm defence elicited some further discussion and criticism, from which I gathered that the prevailing opinion of Huck was that he was a deceitful boy who said “sweat” when he should have said “perspiration.” The upshot of the matter was that there is to be further consideration of these books at a meeting early in January which I am especially invited to attend. Seeing you the other night at the performance of “Peter Pan”Ⓔexplanatory note the thought came to me that you (who know Huck as well as I—you can’t know him better or love him more—) might be willing to give me a word or two to say in witness of his good character tho he “warn’t no more quality than a mud cat.”Ⓔexplanatory note
I would ask as a favor that you regard this communication as confidential, whether you find time to reply to it or not; for I am loath for obvious reasons to bring the institution from which I draw my salary into ridicule, contempt or reproach.
Yours very respectfully,
Asa Don DickinsonⒺexplanatory note.
(In charge
Department for the Blind
and Sheepshead Bay Branch, Brooklyn Public Library.)
That was a very private letter. I didn’t know the author of it, but I thought I perceived that he was a safe man, and that I could venture to write a pretty private letter in return and trust that he would not allow its dreadful contents to leak out and get into the newspapers. I wrote him on the 21st.
21 Fifth Ave.
Nov. 21, 1905.
Dear SirⒺexplanatory note:
I am greatly troubled by what you say. I wrote Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn for adults exclusively, and it always distresses me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them. The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean; I know this by my own experience, and to this day I cherish an unappeasable bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again this side of the grave. Ask that young lady—she will tell you so.
Most honestly do I wish I could say a softening word or two in defence of Huck’s character, since you wish it, but really in my opinion it is no better thanⒶtextual note those of Solomon, David, SatanⒺexplanatory note, and the rest of the sacred brotherhood.
If there is an Unexpurgated in the Children’s Department, won’tⒶtextual note you please help that young woman remove Huck and Tom from that questionable companionship?
Sincerely yoursⒶtextual note—
(SignedⒶtextual note) S. L. Clemens.
I shall not show your letter to any oneⒶtextual note—it is safe with me.
A couple of days later I received this handsome rejoinder in return.
Sheepshead Bay Branch
brooklyn public library
1657 Shore Road
Brooklyn-New York, Nov. 23rd, ’05.
Dear Sir,
Your letter rec’d. I am surprised to hear that you think Huck and Tom would have an unwholesome effect on boys and girls. But relieved to hear that you would not place them in the same category with many of the scriptural reprobates. I know of one boy who made the acquaintance of Huck in 1884, at the age of eight, and who has known him intimately ever since, and I can assure you he is not an atom the worse for the 20 years’ companionship. On the contrary he will always feel grateful to Huck’s father—I don’t mean Pap—for the many hours spent with him and Jim, when sickness and sorrow were forgotten.
Huckleberry Finn was the first book I selected to read to my blind (for selfish reasons I am afraid), and the amount of innocent enjoyment it gave them, has never been equalled by anything I have since read.
Thanking you for the almost unhoped for courtesy of your reply, I am
Yours very respectfully,
Asa Don Dickinson.
Four months drifted tranquilly by. Then there was music! There came a freshet of newspaper reporters and they besieged poor Miss Lyon all day. Of course I was in bed. I am always in bed. She barred the stairs against them. They were bound to see me, if only for a moment, but none of them got by her guard. They said a report had sprung up that I had written a letter some months before to the Brooklyn Public LibraryⒺexplanatory note; that according to that report the letter was pungent and valuable, and they wanted a copy of it. They said the head officials of the Brooklyn Library declared that they had never seen the letter and that they had never heard of it until the reporters came and asked for it. I judged by this that my man—who was not in the head library, but in a branch of it—was keeping his secret all right, and IⒶtextual note believed he could be trusted to continue to keep that secret, for his own sake as well as mine. That letter would be a bombshell for me if it got out—but it would hoist him, too. So I feltⒶtextual note pretty confident that for his own sake, if for no other, he would protect me.
Miss Lyon had a hard day of it, but I had a most enjoyable one. She never allowed any reporter to get an idea of the nature of the letter; she smoothed all those young fellows down, in her tactful and fascinating and diplomatic way, and sent them away mightily pleased with her, but emptyⒺexplanatory note. Each time that she repulsed an enemy she came up stairsⒶtextual note, told me all about it and what the enemy had said, and how ingeniously he had pleaded, and we had very good times together. Once she had three of these persuasive envoys on her hands at once—but no matter. She beat the whole battery and they got nothing.
They renewed the assault next day, but I told her to never mind—human nature would win the victory for us. There would be an earthquake somewhere, or a municipal [begin page 32] upheaval here, or a threat of war in Europe—something would be sure to happen in the way of a big excitement that would call the boys away from No. 21 Fifth Avenue for twenty-four hours,Ⓐtextual note and that would answer every purpose; they wouldn’t think of that letter again, and we should have peace.
I knew the reporters would get on the right track very soon, so I wrote Mr. Dickinson and warned him to keep his mouth hermetically sealed. I told him to be wise and waryⒺexplanatory note. His answer bears date March 28th.
Bay Ridge Branch
brooklyn public library
73d Street and Second Avenue
Telephone No. 338 Bay Ridge
Brooklyn-New York, Mar. 28, ’06.
Dear Mr. Clemens,
Your letter of the 26th inst. rec’d this moment. As I have now been transferred to the above address, it has been a long time reaching me.
I have tried to be wary and wise and am very grateful to you for your reticence. The poor old B.P.L. has achieved some very undesirableⒶtextual note notoriety. I thought my head was coming off when I heard from my chief on the telephone night before last. But yesterday he began to be amused, I think, at the tea pot tempest.
Last night I reached home at 11.30 and found a Herald man sitting on the steps, leaning his head against the door post. He had been there since 7.30 and said he would cheerfully sit there till morning if I would give him the least hint of the letter’s contents. But I was wise and wary.
At the January meeting it was decided not to place Huck and Tom in the Children’s Ⓐtextual note rooms along with “Little Nellie’s Silver Mine” and “Dotty Dimple at Home.” But the books have not been “restricted” in any sense whatever. They are placed on open shelves among the adult fiction, and any child is free to read adult fiction if he chooses.
I am looking forward with great eagerness to seeing and hearing you tomorrow night at the Waldorf. As I have a wild scheme for a national library for the blind, they have been generous enough to place a couple of boxes at my disposal. The “young lady” whom you mentioned in your letter—the Sup’t of the Children’s Dep’t—and several other B.P.L.’s, I hope will be present.
I am very sorry to have caused you so much annoyance through reporters, but be sure that I have said nothing nor will say anything to them about the contents of that letter. And please don’t you tell on me!
Yours very respectfully,
Asa Don Dickinson.
I saw him at the Waldorf the next night, where Choate and I made our public appeal in behalf of the blindⒺexplanatory note, and found him to be a very pleasant and safe and satisfactory man.
Now that I have heard from France, I think the incident is closed—forⒶtextual note it had its brief run in England, two or three weeks ago, and in Germany also. When people let “Huck Finn” alone he goes peacefully along,Ⓐtextual note damaging a few children here and there and yonder, but there will be plenty of children in heaven without those, so it is no great matter. It [begin page 33] is only when well-meaning people expose him that he gets his real chance to do harm. Temporarily, then, he spreads havoc all around in the nurseries and no doubt does prodigious harm while he has his chance. By and by, let us hope, people that really have the best interests of the rising generation at heart will become wise and not stir Huck up.
a letter from a French friend of mine, enclosing . . . de la faire] This clipping from an unidentified French newspaper was sent to Clemens by Hélène Elisabeth Picard (b. 1872 or 1873) in a letter of 28 or 29 March 1906. In English it reads:
MARK TWAIN BANNED
New York, 27 March. (By dispatch from our special correspondent.)—The directors of the Brooklyn library have put Mark Twain’s two latest books on the prohibited list for children under the age of fifteen, considering them unwholesome.
The celebrated humorist has written the officials a letter full of wit and sarcasm. These gentlemen have refused to publish it, under the pretext that they have not been given the author’s permission to do so.
she wrote me about five years ago . . . friendly letters three or four times a year] The surviving correspondence between Clemens and Picard consists of thirty-one letters, written (with the possible exception of one undated postcard) between February 1902 and August 1909. Nineteen letters are by Picard (all in CU-MARK); twelve are by Clemens, of which nine survive only as transcriptions published in the Ladies’ Home Journal of February 1912 (“Mark Twain’s Private Girls’ Club,” 23, 54). In her 14 March 1902 letter to Clemens, Picard described herself as “Helene E. Picard—of a French Alsatian familly—aged 29—born in le Havre—tall, fair and plain looking, but not altogether too bad—living alone with her mother . . . in a very small town in the Vosges Mountains, quite near the frontier of Alsace.—Is very fond of books, delights in yours” (CU-MARK). For an account of the correspondence, with the texts of all Clemens’s letters except for one he dictated to Isabel Lyon on 9 April 1906, see Schmidt 2011.
I have the constitution and by-laws somewhere] Clemens drafted the “Constitution and Laws of the Juggernaut Club” early in 1902. The only qualification for membership was “superior mentality, joined with sincerity and the spirit of good will”; inside the “imaginary Temple of Juggernaut, where the Club foregathers in the spirit . . . ranks cease, nationalities cease, no clan is represented there but the Human Race.” The unspecified object of the club was to be “determined by the Membership” (draft in CU-MARK, 4–5, 7).
His temple is visited by pilgrims of all ranks . . . those pilgrims constitute a perfect democracy] The temple of Juggernaut, who was a form of the Krishna avatar of Vishnu (one of the most highly revered Hindu divinities), is in Puri in central India, on the Bay of Bengal. The cult of Juggernaut allows no caste distinctions.
Something in a newspaper . . . clean, clear ink] Apart from the enclosed newspaper clipping, this paragraph is the only part of Picard’s letter that is known to survive.
When “Huck” appeared . . . the public library of Concord, Massachusetts, flung him out indignantly] For a detailed account of the Concord library’s March 1885 expulsion, see HF 2003, 763–72.
Then the public library of Denver flung him out] In August of 1902, at the request of local clergymen who attacked Huckleberry Finn as immoral and sacrilegious, the Denver Public Library removed the book from its shelves (Denver Post to SLC, 12 Aug 1902, CU-MARK). In a letter of 14 August to the Denver Post, which had solicited his response, Clemens wrote, in part:
There’s nobody for me to attack in this matter even with soft and gentle ridicule—and I shouldn’t ever think of using a grown up weapon in this kind of a nursery. Above all, I couldn’t venture to attack the clergymen whom you mention, for I have their habits and live in the same glass house which they are occupying. I am always reading immoral books on the sly, and then selfishly trying to prevent other people from having the same wicked good time. (“Mark Twain on ‘Huck Finn,’ ” New York Tribune, 22 Aug 1902, 9)
Embarrassed by the controversy, the library reversed its decision and lifted its ban.
Brander Matthews’s opinion of the book] Matthews, a leading critic and a friend of Clemens’s (see AutoMT1 , 548 n. 255.24), praised Huckleberry Finn at great length in the Saturday Review for 31 January 1885, soon after first publication. He saw the book as much more than just a sequel to Tom Sawyer, noting that “the skill with which the character of Huck Finn is maintained is marvellous. We see everything through his eyes—and they are his eyes and not a pair of Mark Twain’s spectacles.” Matthews called Clemens “a literary artist of a very high order,” and especially appreciated “the sober self-restraint” with which he “lets Huck Finn set down, without any comment at all, scenes which would have afforded the ordinary writer matter for endless moral and political and sociological disquisition” (Matthews 1885, 153). And in a later essay, “The Penalty of Humor,” published in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine for May 1896, Matthews observed that “no one of our American novelists has ever shown more insight into the springs of human action or more dramatic force than is revealed in Huck Finn’s account of the Shepherdson-Grangerford feud, and of the attempt to lynch Colonel Sherburn” (Matthews 1896, 900).
Seeing you the other night at the performance of “Peter Pan”] Peter Pan, based on the book by J. M. Barrie, opened a successful run at the Empire Theatre in New York on 6 November 1905. It starred the popular actress Maude Adams (1872–1953) in what became her most famous role. Clemens, who saw the play on 15 November, called it “consistently beautiful, sweet, clean, fascinating, satisfying, charming, and impossible from beginning to end” (“A Joyous Night with ‘Peter Pan,’ ” New York Times, 7 Nov 1905, 9; “Samuel L. Clemens Interviews the Famous Humorist, Mark Twain,” Seattle Star, 30 Nov 1905, 8, in Scharnhorst 2006, 528; Schmidt 2009; 16 Nov 1905 to Frohman, Lyon draft in CU-MARK).
“warn’t no more quality than a mud cat.”] “He was well born, as the saying is, and that’s worth as much in a man as it is in a horse, so the widow Douglas said, and nobody ever denied that she was of the first aristocracy in our town; and pap he always said it too, though he warn’t no more quality than a mud-cat, himself” ( HF 2003, 142).
Asa Don Dickinson] After leaving the Brooklyn Public Library in 1906, Dickinson (1876–1960) worked as a librarian in New York, Kansas, Washington, and Pennsylvania before finishing his distinguished career at Brooklyn College. He also was a prolific author and anthologist. In 1935 he published “Huckleberry Finn Is Fifty Years Old—Yes; But Is He Respectable?” in which he gave a very brief account of how and when Huck Finn was written, as well as an account of his correspondence with Clemens (Asa Don Dickinson 1935).
21 Fifth Ave. . . . Dear Sir] The source of this letter text is Lyon’s handwritten record copy of Clemens’s original manuscript. In his 1935 article Dickinson published a facsimile of the holograph letter that he actually received (Asa Don Dickinson 1935, 184; see also the note at 30.38–40).
Huck’s character . . . is no better than those of Solomon, David, Satan] In the holograph letter that Clemens sent to Dickinson, this passage reads: “Huck’s character . . . is no better than God’s (in the Ahab chapter & 97 others,) & those of Solomon, David, Satan” (Asa Don Dickinson 1935, 184). Clemens canceled “God’s (in the Ahab chapter & 97 others,)”—the only revision he made—on Lyon’s copy of this letter, which he inserted in the dictation.
report had sprung up that I had written a letter some months before to the Brooklyn Public Library] The report had probably “sprung up” because Dickinson—as he later explained—read the letter aloud at a librarians’ meeting: “Needless to say, it fluttered the library dovecotes not a little, and all agreed that silence was golden. Mark Twain’s name had a publicity value in those days only comparable to [Franklin] The report had probably “sprung up” because Dickinson—as he later explained—read the letter aloud at a librarians’ meeting: “Needless to say, it fluttered the library dovecotes not a little, and all agreed that silence was golden. Mark Twain’s name had a publicity value in those days only comparable to [Franklin] Roosevelt’s in this. Public interest in his lightest word was unbounded and as uncontrollable as a prairie fire” (Asa Don Dickinson 1935, 183).
Miss Lyon . . . sent them away mightily pleased with her, but empty] In her diary entry for 27 March Lyon noted that
all day reporters have been flitting in & out trying to get Mr. Clemens to say something because Huck Finn & Tom Sawyer are reported as under ban in a Brooklyn library. Mr. Clemens hasn’t anything to say—he never does have—except from the depths of that glory of a bed & for private ears— Those reporters wanted to get hold of the letter he wrote to Mr. Asa Don Dickinson—“a most characteristic & most damnedest letter”—but it would be a damaging letter. (Lyon 1906, entry for 27 Mar)
I wrote Mr. Dickinson . . . to be wise and wary] In a short letter of 26 March Clemens instructed Dickinson: “Be wise as a serpent & wary as a dove! The newspaper boys want that letter—don’t you let them get hold of it. They say you refuse to allow them to see it without my consent. Keep on refusing, & I’ll take care of this end of the line” (Lyon record copy, CU-MARK). In his article Dickinson quoted from this letter, which he said arrived with “a special delivery stamp” (Asa Don Dickinson 1935, 185). On 27 March, Clemens took care of his “end of the line” by releasing this statement about the Brooklyn library’s treatment of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer:
“It is all a matter of indifference to me. As I understand it, the librarian has not placed the books upon a restricted list, but has put them in the list of books for adults so grown up people can have the opportunity of reading them. They were heretofore given out to children only. Now they can be read by everybody.
“The letter I wrote was a personal one, and I would not care to have it made public. I don’t think my books are harmful to children, but I don’t care to go into a discussion about that at this time.” (“Topics in New York,” New York Sun, 28 Mar 1906, 5, reprinting the Baltimore Sun)
Source documents.
TS1 (incomplete) Typescript, leaves numbered 676, 680–91 (altered in pencil to 685, 689–700; 677–79 are missing), made from Hobby’s notes and revised: ‘Monday, April 9 . . . reference is’ (27.36–28.13); ‘Something in . . . Huck up.’ (29.11–33.4).Clipping Clipping from an unidentified newspaper, attached to TS1: ‘MARK TWAIN INTERDIT . . . le faire.’ (28.1–8).
Picard to SLC Fragment of MS letter from Hélène Picard to SLC, 28? March 1906, attached to TS1: ‘Something in . . . clear ink.’ (29.11–19).
Dickinson to SLC 1 MS letter, Asa Don Dickinson to SLC, 19 November 1905, attached to TS1: ‘Sheepshead Bay . . . Public Library.)’ (29.31–30.22).
Lyon transcript MS transcript by Isabel V. Lyon of SLC to Dickinson, 21 November 1905, attached to TS1: ‘21 Fifth . . . with me.’ (30.27–45).
Dickinson to SLC 2 MS letter, Asa Don Dickinson to SLC, 23 November 1905, attached to TS1: ‘Sheepshead Bay . . . Dickinson.’ (31.2–20).
Dickinson to SLC 3 MS letter, Asa Don Dickinson to SLC, 28 March 1906, attached to TS1: ‘Bay Ridge . . . Dickinson.’ (32.8–38).
TS2 Typescript, leaves numbered 835–46, made from the revised TS1 with the attached documents: Clipping, Picard to SLC, Lyon transcript, and Dickinson to SLC 1, 2, and 3.
TS4 Typescript, leaves numbered 1070–81, made from the revised TS1 with the attached documents.
TS1 is largely made up of clippings and pieces of correspondence, pasted onto the leaves. For the text of Clemens’s letter to Dickinson, the original is available (in facsimile; the letter itself was sold at Sotheby’s in 1989 and its current whereabouts are unknown), but we draw our text from the document provided to Hobby: Lyon’s transcript of the letter, which Hobby pasted into TS1. From each of Dickinson’s letters we have omitted the stationery specification line and the text of the Library’s seal. TS1 is now incomplete, three leaves containing Clemens’s account of the Juggernaut Club having been discarded by Paine in preparing MTA.
Clemens revised TS1, and his revisions are incorporated into TS2. On TS2’s first leaf he wrote ‘Not usable yet’; no part of this dictation was considered for NAR publication. For the portion of TS1 destroyed by Paine, TS2 supplies the text (28.13–29.11). It is collated against TS4 as a check on its accuracy, but the latter contributes no readings.