About thirty-five years ago (1872) I took a sudden notion to go to England and get materials for a bookⒺexplanatory note about that not-sufficiently-knownⒶtextual note country. It was my purpose to spy out the land in a very private way, and complete my visit without making any acquaintances. I had never been in England, I was eager to see it, and I promised myself an interesting time. The interesting time began at once, in the London train from Liverpool. It lasted an hour—an hour of delight, rapture, ecstasy—these are the best words I can find, but they are not adequate, they are not strong enough to convey the feeling which this first vision of rural England brought to me. Then the interest changed, and took another form: I began to wonder why the Englishman in the other end of the compartment never looked up from his book. It seemed to me that I had not before seen a man who could read a whole hour in a train and never once take his eyes off his book. I wondered what kind of a book it might be that could so absorb a person. Little by little my curiosity grew, until at last it divided my interest in the scenery; and then went on growing until it [begin page 435] abolished it. I felt that I must satisfy this curiosity before I could get back to my scenery, so I loitered over to that man’s end of the carriage and stole a furtive glance at his book; it was the English edition of my “Innocents Abroad!” Then I loitered back to my end of the compartment, nervous, uncomfortable and sorry I had found out; for I remembered that up to this time I had never seen that absorbed reader smile. I could not look out at the scenery any more, I could not take my eyes from the reader and his book. I tried to get a sort of comfort out of the fact that he was evidently deeply interested in the book and manifestly never skipped a line, but the comfort was only moderate and was quite unsatisfying. I hoped he would smile once—only just once—and I kept on hoping and hoping, but it never happened. By and by I perceived that he was getting close to the end; then I was glad, for my misery would soon be over. The train made only one stop in its journey of five hours and twenty minutes; the stop was at Crewe. The gentleman finished the book just as we were slowing down for the stop. When the train came to a standstill he put the book in the rack and jumped out. I shall always remember what a wave of gratitude and happiness swept through me when he turned the last page of that book. I felt as a condemned man must feel who is pardoned upon the scaffold with the noose hanging over him. I said to myself that I would now resume the scenery and be twice as happy in it as I had been before. But this was premature, for as soon as the gentleman returned he reached into his hand-bag and got out the second volume! He and that volume constituted the only scenery that fell under my eyes during the rest of the journey. From Crewe to London he read in that same old absorbed way but he never smiled. Neither did I.
It was a bad beginning, and affected me dismally. It gave me a longing for friendly companionship and sympathy. Next morning this feeling was still upon me. It was a dreary morning, dim, vague, shadowy, with not a cheery ray of sunshine visible anywhere. By half past nine the desire to see somebody, know somebody, shake hands with somebody and see somebody smile had conquered my purpose to remain a stranger in London, and I drove to my publisher’s place and introduced myself. The RoutledgesⒺexplanatory note were about to sit down at a meal in a private room up stairsⒶtextual note in the publishing house, for they had not had a bite to eat since breakfast. I helped them eat the meal; at eleven I helped them eat another one; at one o’clock I superintended while they took luncheon; during the afternoon I assisted inactively at some more meals. These exercises had a strong and most pleasant interest for me, but they were not a novelty because,Ⓐtextual note only five years before,Ⓐtextual note I was present in the Sandwich Islands when fifteen men of the shipwrecked Hornet’sⒶtextual note crew arrived, a pathetic little group who hadn’t had anything to eat for forty-five daysⒺexplanatory note.
In the evening Edmund Routledge took me to the Savage ClubⒺexplanatory note, and there we had something to eat again; also something to drink; also lively speeches, lively anecdotes, late hours, and a very hospitable and friendly and contenting and delightful good time. It is a vivid and pleasant memory with me yet. About midnight the company left the table and presently crystallized itself into little groups of three or four persons, and the anecdoting was resumed. The last group I sat with that night was composed of Tom Hood, Harry Lee, and another good man—Frank BucklandⒺexplanatory note, I think. We broke up at [begin page 436] two in the morning; then I missed my money—five five-poundⒶtextual note notes, new and white and crisp, after the cleanly fashion that prevails there. Everybody hunted for the money but failed to find it. How it could have gotten out of my trowsers-pocketⒶtextual note was a mystery. I called it a mystery; they called it a mystery; by unanimous consent it was a mystery, but that was as far as we got. We dropped the matter there, and found things of higher interest to talk about. After I had gone to bed in the Langham HotelⒶtextual note I found that a single pair of candlesⒶtextual note did not furnish enough light to read by with comfort, and so I rang, in order that I might order thirty-five more, for I was in a prodigal frame of mind on account of the evening’s felicities. The servant filled my order, then he proposed to carry away my clothes and polish them with his brush. He emptied all the pockets, and among other things he fetched out those five five-poundⒶtextual note notes. Here was another mystery! and I inquired of this magician how he had accomplished that trick—the very thing a hundred of us, equipped with the finest intelligence, had tried to accomplish during half an hour and had failed. He said it was very simple; he got them out of the tail-coat pocket of my dress suitⒺexplanatory note! I must have put them there myself and forgotten it. Yet I do not see how that could be, for as far as I could remember we had had nothing wet at the Savage Club but water. As far as I could remember.
In those days—and perhaps still—membership in the Lotos Club in New York carried with it the privilegesⒶtextual note of membership in the Savage, and the Savages enjoyed Lotos privileges when in New York. I was a member of the Lotos. Ten or eleven years ago I was made an honorary member of the Lotos, and released from dues; and seven or eight years ago I was made an honorary member of the SavageⒺexplanatory note. At that time the honorary list included the Prince of Wales—now hisⒶtextual note Majesty the King—and Nansen the explorer, and another—StanleyⒺexplanatory note, I think.
title February 19, 1907] 434 title February 19, 1907] The real date of this dictation is not known; Clemens’s vague chronological statements in the text, taken literally, yield dates ranging from 1904 to 1907. The text survives in a typescript by an unidentified typist; the date adopted here was written at the top by Isabel Lyon. In correspondence with his friend British librarian John Y. W. MacAlister, Clemens identified this essay as a dictation for the Autobiography. MacAlister, a fellow member of the Savage Club, wrote to him on 6 February 1907 (CU-MARK), seeking an original contribution to a volume celebrating the club’s fiftieth anniversary. Clemens replied on 21 February:
There has been no time at my disposal in which to write something special, so I have taken this out of my vast pile of autobiographical MS. It will appear after my death, along with the rest of my Memoires. It lacks smoothness in spots, but I seldom apply an after-polish, for dictated things are talk, & talk is all the better & all the more natural when it stumbles a little here & there. (NN-BGC)
The piece was printed in the Savage Club volume as “Mark Twain’s Own Account” (Aaron Watson 1907, 131–35; for the Savage Club, see the note at 435.36).
About thirty-five years ago (1872) . . . to go to England and get materials for a book] Acting on a suggestion from Joseph Blamire, the New York agent of his London publisher, George Routledge and Sons, Clemens visited England in August–November 1872, and made extensive notes for a travel book that he never completed. On 21 August he sailed from New York on the Scotia and arrived at Liverpool ten days later, traveling by train from Liverpool to London on 2 September ( L5: 21 July 1872 to Blamire, 128–31 n. 3; 11 Aug 1872 to OC, 144–45 n. 1; link note following 1 Sept 1872 to OLC, 153).
I drove to my publisher’s place . . . The Routledges] The first English edition of The Innocents Abroad was published in 1870 by John Camden Hotten. In the absence of international copyright agreements, he paid Clemens nothing for the privilege. He divided the text into two volumes, The Innocents Abroad and The New Pilgrim’s Progress.Three years earlier, in 1867, the firm of George Routledge and Sons had reprinted The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, also without permission or payment; its sales were promising, and they began to seek exclusive rights to Clemens’s books in England. In mid-1871, as Clemens was about to publish Roughing It through the American Publishing Company, he wrote Elisha Bliss, “Have you heard anything from Routledge? Considering the large English sale he made of one of my other books (Jumping Frog,) I thought may be we might make something if I could give him a secure copyright” (21 June 1871, L4, 410–11). English copyright could be secured on a book by publishing it in England just before it appeared in the United States. This was done with Roughing It, and in early September 1872, when Clemens was going to visit the Routledges in London, they had just published their own two-volume edition of The Innocents Abroad. They became Mark Twain’s favored British publishers, producing authorized English editions of the Jumping Frog, Mark Twain’s Sketches, A Curious Dream, The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, and The Gilded Age. In 1876, with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Clemens transferred his loyalties to Hotten’s successors, Chatto and Windus ( ET&S1, 546–55, 586–610; RI 1993, 876–77).
I was present in the Sandwich Islands . . . hadn’t had anything to eat for forty-five days] In 1866 Clemens was in Honolulu when the survivors of the Hornet reached the Sandwich Islands after forty-three days adrift at sea. He promptly interviewed the emaciated crew and wrote up the story for the Sacramento Union. Later that year he also wrote “Forty-three Days in an Open Boat,” published in the December issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (SLC 1866a, 1866b). More than thirty years later, in 1898, he wrote about this early experience as an author in “My Debut as a Literary Person,” calling it “Chapter XIV of my unpublished Autobiography” ( AutoMT1 , 127–49 and notes on 501–6).
In the evening Edmund Routledge took me to the Savage Club] Edmund Routledge (1843–99) became a partner in his father’s publishing company in 1865. Clemens’s first visit to the Savage Club was not on his first day in London, but about three weeks later, on 21 September (his after-dinner speech on that occasion is printed as the enclosure with 22 Sept 1872 to Conway [2nd], L5, 172–78). The Savage Club was founded in 1857 as a private and informal club for authors, journalists, and artists. Some believed that the club took its name from poet and playwright Richard Savage (d. 1743), best known from Samuel Johnson’s biography of him. Journalist and novelist George Augustus Sala, on the other hand, asserted that “we dubbed ourselves Savages for mere fun” and “practised a shrill shriek or war-whoop, which was given in unison at stated intervals” (Aaron Watson 1907, 21; L5: 21 Nov 1873 to OLC, 480 n. 2; 22 Sept 1872 to OLC, 169–70 n. 3).
Tom Hood, Harry Lee, and . . . Frank Buckland] Clemens mentions the following Savage Club members: Tom Hood (1835–74), poet, journalist, anthologist, and son of poet and humorist Thomas Hood (1799–1845); Henry S. Lee (1826–88), self-educated naturalist and author of popular works on marine life; and Francis Trevelyan Buckland (1826–80), physician and prominent natural historian and pisciculturist.
five five-pound notes . . . tail-coat pocket of my dress suit] On 22 September 1872 Clemens reported the loss of bank notes worth thirty or forty pounds (but not their recovery) in a letter to his wife ( L5, 169–70).
I was a member of the Lotos . . . honorary member of the Savage] Clemens was elected to membership in the Lotos Club in 1873; he became a life member in 1895. He seems to have become an honorary member of the Savage Club in 1897 (Pardee to SLC, 13 Feb 1873, CU-MARK; “Mark Twain a Life Member of the Lotos,” New York Tribune, 25 Apr 1895, 11; Notebook 40, TS p. 19, CU-MARK).
the King—and Nansen the explorer, and another—Stanley] The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) had been elected to honorary life membership in 1882. Henry M. Stanley received that honor in 1890. Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930) was elected in 1897, after his historic effort to reach the North Pole in April 1895 (“The Savage Club,” London Morning Post, 13 Feb 1882, 3; Aaron Watson 1907, 135; “Stanley a Savage,” Boston Herald, 26 Feb 1890, 2; for Stanley’s life and exploits see AD, 20 Nov 1906, note at 280.28–33).
Source documents.
TS ribbon Typescript, leaves numbered 1–6, made from an unidentified source and revised, NN-BGC.TS carbon Typescript carbon, leaves numbered 1–6, revised.
The real date of this dictation is not known. Clemens’s vague remarks in it suggest dates ranging from 1904 to 1907. The dictation, which was not typed by Hobby, was never incorporated into the TS1 series; but in a letter to John Y. MacAlister on 21 February 1907 (NN-BGC), Clemens identified it as part of the Autobiography, and described it as a dictation (see the explanatory note at 434 title). MacAlister had solicited this dictation as a contribution to a volume celebrating the Savage Club (Aaron Watson 1907).
TS ribbon was made by the typist of TS4, who has never been identified. It was revised by Clemens, who then transferred his revisions to TS carbon (overlooking the added commas at 435.13). TS carbon has a date, handwritten by Lyon on the first page: ‘Feb. 19. 1907.’—which must have been added at Clemens’s behest, and we adopt it.