I will setⒶtextual note down a tale as it was told to me by one who had it of his father, which latter had it of his father, this last having in like manner had it of his father—and so on, back and still back, three hundred years and more, the fathers transmitting it to the sons and so preserving it. It may be history, it may be only a legend, a tradition. It may have happened, it may not have happened: but it could have happened. It may be that the wise and the learned believed it in the old days; it may be that only the unlearned and the simple loved it and credited it.
Textual Notes [Preface]
Ⓐ I will set] In the top left
margin of the manuscript page beginning here, Mark Twain wrote and canceled in
ink 3 the incomplete instruction “Put this paragra.” Next to that in pencil in
an unidentified hand, evidently that of an editor at the Osgood company, is the
canceled inscription “10 to 14 to RA &Co”—noting that pages 10 through 14 of
the manuscript had been sent to Rand, Avery, and Company, the printers of the
first American edition, for word count and assessment. Following the canceled
inscription is the penciled abbreviation “ntd,” perhaps indicating that
information concerning the five pages was noted elsewhere or that the pages had
been returned. Some specifications for the book were written on the verso of
manuscript page 10 (see the textual note at 49.5).