Item from Susy’s BiographyⒶtextual note about visit to Onteora—Description of the primitive inhabitants.
From Susy’s Biography. Ⓐtextual note
Mamma and papa have returned from Onteora and they have had a delightful visit. Mr. Frank StocktonⒺexplanatory note was down in Virginia and could not reach Onteora in time, so they did not see him, and Mrs. Mary Mapes DodgeⒺexplanatory note was ill and couldn’t go to Onteora, but Mrs. General Custer was thereⒶtextual note and mamma said that she was a very attractive, sweet appearing woman.
Onteora was situated high up in the Catskill Mountains, in the centreⒶtextual note of a far-reaching solitude. I do not mean that the region was wholly uninhabited; there were farm-housesⒶtextual note here and there, at generous distances apart. Their occupants were descendants of ancestors who had built the houses in Rip Van Winkle’s timeⒺexplanatory note, or earlier; and those ancestors [begin page 251] were not more primitive than were this posterity of theirs. The city people were as foreign and unfamiliar and strange to them as monkeys would have been, and they would have respected the monkeys as much as they respected these elegant summer resortersⒶtextual note. The resorters were a puzzle to them,Ⓐtextual note their ways were so strange and their interests so trivial. They drove the resorters over the mountain roads and listened in shamed surprise at their bursts of enthusiasm over the scenery. The farmers had had that scenery on exhibition from their mountain roosts all their lives, and had never noticed anything remarkable about it. By way of an incident: a pair of these primitives were overheard chatting about the resorters, one day, and in the course of their talk this remark was dropped,Ⓐtextual note
“I was a-drivin’ a passel of ’em round about yisterday evenin’Ⓐtextual note, quiet ones, you know, still and solemn, and all to wunstⒶtextual note they busted out to make your hair lift,Ⓐtextual note and I judged hell was to pay. Now what do you reckon it was? It wa’n’t anything but jest one of them common damned yaller sunsets.”
In those days——Ⓐtextual note
Mr. Frank Stockton] Francis R. Stockton (1834–1902) worked for Scribner’s Monthly, and later served as assistant editor of St. Nicholas, a magazine for young people. His numerous stories and novels for children were known for their clever humor.
Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge] Dodge (1831–1905) became an author after she was widowed in 1858. Her most famous work is the children’s novel Hans Brinker; or, The Silver Skates (1865). She edited St. Nicholas magazine from 1873 until her death.
Rip Van Winkle’s time] Washington Irving’s famous story, first published in 1819, takes place in the Catskills both before and after the Revolutionary War.
Source documents.
TS1 ribbon Typescript, leaves numbered 1328–29, made from Hobby’s notes and revised.TS1 carbon Typescript carbon, leaves numbered 1328–29, revised.
NAR 24pf Galley proofs of NAR 24, typeset from the revised TS1 carbon and further revised (the same extent as NAR 24), ViU.
NAR 24 North American Review 186 (November 1907), 327–28: ‘Tuesday . . . 1906’ (250 title); ‘From Susy’s . . . those days——’ (250.27–251.44).
Clemens made a few revisions on TS1 ribbon; he transferred all but one (deemed an oversight) to TS1 carbon, adding only ‘Dictated’ to the dateline. At first he decided not to publish the dictation in NAR, marking the entire text ‘LEAVE OUT’; he then reversed his decision, noting ‘can be used’ and ‘PUT THIS IN’. NAR editor David Munro added three revisions of his own, and it was published in NAR 24, where it was followed by the ADs of 16 October, 11 October (partial), and 12 October 1906, and 23 January 1907 (partial).
Marginal Notes on TS1 carbon Concerning Publication in NAR
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