Description of the Texts
In the eleven-year period during which he worked on, set aside, and returned to the three Mysterious Stranger manuscripts, Mark Twain employed a variety of materials. The physical characteristics of the manuscripts make it possible to distinguish the stages in which the works were composed and revised, and, taken together with external evidence and the literary analysis presented in the Introduction, to establish an accurate chronology of composition.
The first ninety-six manuscript pages of “The Chronicle of Young Satan,” composed between November 1897 and January 18981 and comprising the present chapters 1 and 2, the beginning of chapter 3 and part of chapter 10, were written on heavy buff sheets 55/16” by 8¼” in black ink. Nineteen of these ninety-six pages, written with the same materials, were incorporated in the “Chronicle” manuscript from the earlier “St. Petersburg” version of the story. These pages were renumbered and revised; five manuscript pages, written concurrently with the rest of “Chronicle,” link the “St. Petersburg Fragment” to the later version.
This ninety-six-page section presents a unified tale of Father Peter's [begin page 488] discovery of the gold, the accusation against him, his trial, vindication, and final “happiness”—the madness that Philip Traum bestows on him. When Mark Twain returned to his story in May 1899, he set aside the last ten pages of this sequence and added two hundred and ninety pages before restoring the old pages, renumbered, to the manuscript. This new middle sequence was written on torn half-sheets of lightweight, cream-colored stock, 5“ by 8”, with vertical chain-lines spaced approximately one inch apart. The ink is a faint or faded black which now appears gray.
Eight months intervened between the two periods in which Mark Twain worked on this second portion of the manuscript. Although he continued to employ the same paper and ink, he seems to have laid the manuscript aside in October 1899, resuming work in June 1900.2 Then, after restoring the ten pages reserved from the 1897–98 draft, he carried his story forward immediately on the cream-colored paper, suspending work again briefly late in July. The last thirty-one pages of the manuscript were written in August 1900 in faint black ink but on torn half-sheets of ochre paper 415/16” by 715/16” with vertical chain-lines spaced 1” to 11/16” apart.
In addition to the manuscript, there is a typescript of “Chronicle” consisting of one hundred and ninety-two pages numbered consecutively from 12 to 203. Chapter 1 is missing. On this typescript Mark Twain wrote a number of notes for revision of his story—revision which he never carried out—and made one alteration in the text. Paine and Duneka, however, made numerous corrections and revisions on the typescript. Most of these revisions were carried forward into the posthumous highly corrupted text of the serialization and first edition of 1916. This typescript, augmented by further changes in proof, may have been the basis of the published story; or a missing typescript (perhaps a carbon copy of this typescript) may have served as the printer's copy.
“Schoolhouse Hill” was written in November and December 1898 [begin page 489] between the time that Mark Twain completed the ninety-six pages of “Chronicle” on heavy buff paper and his resumption of work on that manuscript. The one hundred and thirty-nine-page manuscript is the sole text of the work. It is written on torn half-sheets of Joynson Superfine paper in black ink. A few revisions are in pencil. The manuscript is continuously paged, except that two sequences are numbered 95–97.
The latest and longest manuscript, “No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger,” is the version to which Mark Twain returned most frequently in his effort to impose a final and satisfactory form on the tale.
He wrote chapter 2 first, making a note on the first manuscript page to provide a description of the setting from “Chronicle.” Then he appropriated the first twenty-two pages (chapter 1) of “Chronicle,” making a number of revisions on them in dark blue ink to integrate them into the new story. The first two pages of this borrowed first chapter are reproduced on the following page. They show the changes Mark Twain made in black ink while composing the chapter for “Chronicle” and the later revisions which he made in dark blue ink when he adapted it for “No. 44.” The changes in title and in date were made for “No. 44.” The interlineation in the second sentence is in black ink and was made during the composition of “Chronicle.” On MS page 2 the addition of the name “Rosenfeld” and the associated cancellations are in dark blue ink; “a league” and “a precipice overlooked the river, and back of it and to the left of it” are interlined in dark blue ink; but “left” is canceled and “right” is interlined in black ink. Mark Twain joined chapters 1 and 2 by adding a single fresh manuscript page. The five hundred and thirty-page manuscript continues in the same dark blue ink through MS page 161. Mark Twain may have laid the manuscript aside briefly, for the next ten pages are written in black ink and a few revisions in black ink appear on pages prior to MS page 161. With the exception, of course, of the borrowed “Chronicle” first chapter, and some late revisions on inserted pages, he wrote through MS page 432 on glossy pearl-gray Par Value tablet paper approximately 5⅝” by 8 15/16”.
Tuckey demonstrates that Mark Twain wrote to the end of chapter 7 while he was in the United States.3 When he took up residence in Florence in 1904, Mark Twain returned to the manuscript and wrote chapters 8 through 12, still using the same materials. Father Peter's [begin page 490]
After laying the manuscript aside for a short interval, Mark Twain resumed work, using a vivid light blue ink for pages 172–214. By the end of February he had shifted again, to a purplish-blue ink which he used for pages 215–432, until his wife's death brought his stay in Florence to an end. The final chapter of “No. 44,” which Paine printed as the last chapter of the published version, is also written in this purplish-blue ink on Par Value stock. Written out of sequence, in anticipation of completing the story, it is separately paginated 1–6 and headed “Conclusion of the book.”
Presumably Mark Twain paused in the course of writing the portion of the manuscript which is in purplish-blue ink, for at the beginning of chapter 18 he noted that he thought he remembered tearing up an unspecified number of pages at his last sitting. Roughly twenty-five pages later there is a gap in the pagination where, returning to the manuscript in 1905, he destroyed, rearranged, and inserted pages.
Pages 433–587 are written in blue-black ink on off-white non-glossy paper 511/16” by 815/16”. The writing runs along the length, rather than across the width, of his manuscript page, a habit that characterizes Mark Twain's work of 1905. The substitute pages inserted earlier in the manuscript are also written lengthwise on the page. The author's notation, dated 30 June 1905, “Burned the rest (30,000 words) . . .” on MS page 432 in blue-black ink firmly fixes the time at which he began this section. Apparently he had written through MS page 587 by mid-July, when he discontinued work in order to complete other writings.
He did not return to the manuscript until 1908 when he wrote the penultimate chapter, which describes the procession of the dead, in black ink on eight separately paginated leaves of light tan paper 53/4” by 83/4” with horizontal chain-lines spaced 15/16” apart.
Occasional instructions to the typist on the manuscript suggest that Jean Clemens typed the manuscript in units as her father finished each portion of his work. The first portion of the typescript was typed on a machine with a purple ribbon. It breaks off on TS page 174, at the end of chapter 17, where Mark Twain paused in the course of composition and noted that he had torn up a number of pages. Revisions in Mark Twain's hand are scattered throughout these pages.
[begin page 492]Two typescripts survive for chapters 18–26, the remaining chapters that were written in Florence. Both were typed on machines with black ribbons. One typescript was revised by Mark Twain, and the fact that its pagination is continuous with the sections preceding and following suggests that it is the earlier. The other was apparently also typed from the manuscript, for it does not incorporate the revisions on the first typescript and there is a one-page gap in numbering between its last page and the first page of the final unit.
The last portion of the typescript, reproducing the manuscript pages written in 1905, breaks off at the end of chapter 31. Both a carbon copy and a ribbon copy survive in the Mark Twain Papers, but Mark Twain entered revisions only on the ribbon copy.
Yet another typescript—prepared on a script typewriter with a purple ribbon—reproduces the first two chapters. It contains some corrections, probably Paine's, and is in all respects identical to Jean Clemens's typescript.
Editorial Practices
Every effort has been made to preserve Mark Twain's words—his “substantives”—and his “accidentals”—his spelling, punctuation, word-division and capitalization—in the three versions of “The Mysterious Stranger.”
As the texts which best preserve the author's intentions in each of the three works, the manuscripts have been chosen as copy-text, or basis for the present edition. The typescripts of “Chronicle” and “No. 44,” with Mark Twain's revisions, also possess authority, however. Only one revision in the “Chronicle” typescript is clearly Mark Twain's; but Paine and Duneka made numerous changes, most of them in pencil, and there are a number of deleted passages, also in pencil. These cuts were almost certainly made by Mark Twain's editors. In his Autobiographical Dictation of 17 July 1906 (MTP), Mark Twain asserted that Duneka, a Roman Catholic, got the “dry gripes” from any criticism of his church, and added:
Last summer, Mr. Duneka wanted to look at one of these stories, a story whose scene is laid in the Middle Ages, and in it he found a drunken and profane Catholic priest—a spectacle which was as common in [begin page 493] Europe four hundred years ago as Dunekas are in hell to-day. Of course it made him shudder, and he wanted that priest reformed or left out. Mr. Duneka seems to do four-fifths of the editing of everything that comes to Harper & Brothers for publication, and he certainly has a good literary instinct and judgement as long as his religion does not get into his way.
Paine's comment on the Autobiographical Dictation—surely written after Mark Twain's death—is: “None of this is in accordance with the facts. There was a misunderstanding, but this is not the story of it.” The fact remains, however, that many of the “Chronicle” cancellations concern Father Adolf, the “drunken and profane Catholic priest,” and that this typescript initiates the process of expurgation and adaptation completed in the published edition of 1916. Paine and Duneka even went so far as to change the name “Fuchs” to “Schultz,” apparently in the interest of propriety. Finally, however, they solved the problem by deleting the character entirely. A conservative policy has therefore been followed in emending from this typescript: only the one revision in Mark Twain's hand has been accepted.
In contrast to the “Chronicle” typescript, the typescript for “No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger” contains many of Mark Twain's holograph revisions, with only a few added by Paine. Mark Twain's revisions have been incorporated into the present text. In a few instances, these revisions were occasioned by a typing error. Working without the manuscript, Mark Twain was unable to restore the manuscript reading; instead, he revised on the basis of the corrupted reading. These revisions are reported in the textual notes.
In the manuscript of “No. 44,” Mark Twain inserted two leaves instructing the typist to change the name of the printshop foreman from Blume to Katzenyammer and the name of the cat from Mary Baker G. Eddy to Mary Florence Fortescue Baker G. Nightingale. Jean Clemens made the first change as she typed, and the present edition follows her typescript; she did not go back over her work to make the second, but the cat's full name and its variants have been supplied in the present text, according to Mark Twain's instructions.
In order to represent accurately the manuscript pages that served for both the first chapter of “Chronicle” and the first chapter of “No. 44,” it has been necessary to distinguish between the revisions made in black ink during the writing of “Chronicle” and the later revisions in dark blue ink made to adapt the chapter to “No. 44.” The former, of [begin page 494] course, have been accepted as part of the “Chronicle” text, and the cancellations and additions are preserved in the textual apparatus. The latter have been incorporated into the text of “No. 44.”
Mark Twain was a good speller, and meticulous about his punctuation. His accidentals have been altered only when what he has written is obviously in error or inconsistent with his general and clear preference for one usage over another. Thus, his habitual misspelling “sieze” has been corrected, but “ancle,” for which there is nineteenth-century authority, has not been emended; where terminal quotation marks are omitted in a number of speeches, they have been editorially supplied, but the profusion of commas in the manuscripts has been allowed to stand. Emendations for consistency are more frequent. Mark Twain expected a publisher to impose a consistent texture on his accidentals, which could be expected to vary in usage, particularly in manuscripts written in many sections over many years. In the “No. 44” manuscript, for instance, the spelling “faggots” appears once (at 327.25), while “fagots” occurs seven times. The first spelling is emended in the present edition. On the other hand, when Mark Twain appeared to be indifferent about usage, as in the alternative spellings “recognize” and “recognise” or “worshipped” and “worshiped,” these forms have been allowed to stand unchanged since they present no problem for an understanding of the text.
Similarly, although in the first half of the manuscript he did not capitalize “Duplicate” when used as a designation for the alter egos created by 44, he indicates a preference for the capital “D” by mending from lower case to upper case on MS pp. 263–274 and capitalizing the word in every reference thereafter. This edition, therefore, consistently prints “Duplicate” when the word is used as a noun. This and similar emendations are recorded in the list following this Commentary.
Silent revisions have been kept to a minimum. However, manuscript forms peculiar to the written page have not been transferred to the printed page. Ampersands have been expanded to “and,” “&c.” to “etc.” Parentheses and square brackets have both been rendered as parentheses to preserve square brackets for editorial insertions. Superscript letters and figures have been lowered to the line. Eccentricities of Mark Twain's handwriting have not been noted. Chapter headings have been silently standardized: periods and flourishes following chapter headings have been dropped; chapter numbers have been supplied when the author left a blank; and “Chapter” has replaced Mark Twain's “Chap.,” [begin page 495] “CHAP,” or “CHAPTER.” In the “Chronicle” manuscript he designated and numbered only the first three chapters, leaving extra space between sections thereafter. Chapter headings have been supplied at certain of these breaks; the others appear in the text as white space. In “Schoolhouse” Mark Twain numbered the chapters himself. He numbered the first four chapters of “No. 44” and designated but did not number the rest.
Guide to the Apparatus
The textual apparatus consists of the following sections:
Editorial Emendations of the Copy-Texts: With the exception of the silent alterations listed above, every departure from the manuscripts is listed here. Emendation is of two kinds: authorial revision and editorial correction. The emended reading as it appears in the text of this edition is given first, followed by a square bracket and an identification of the source for the change. Although they possess no textual authority, changes made by the typist or by Albert Bigelow Paine have been consulted for suggestions as to the form of a correction. Corrections made by Mark Twain's typist in the course of transcription are designated “TS”; Albert Bigelow Paine's corrections on the typescripts, “TS-ABP”; those which appear in the 1916 edition are designated “Paine I.” Mark Twain's authoritative revisions in the typescripts are designated “TS-MT.” Emendations that appear without ascription are made for the first time in this edition. The rejected manuscript reading follows the source of the emendation.
Textual Notes: The textual notes comment on vexed readings, elucidate emendations or refusals to emend which require explanation, and specify the characteristics of the text described in the Textual Commentary.
Alterations in the Manuscripts: “The Mysterious Stranger” has been widely regarded as the most important of Mark Twain's late writings, and has been the subject of heated controversy about his creative powers. Therefore every alteration in the manuscripts has been included in full.4 The only exceptions are unrecovered cancellations and essential [begin page 496] corrections that Mark Twain made as he wrote or reread his work. These latter fall into six categories: (1) letters or words that have been mended, traced over, or canceled and rewritten for clarity; (2) false starts and slips of the pen; (3) corrected eye skips; (4) mended or corrected misspellings; (5) words or phrases that have been inadvertently repeated, then canceled; and (6) inadvertent additions of letters or punctuation that have been subsequently canceled, for instance, an incorrect “they” or “then” altered to “the,” or superfluous quotation marks canceled at the end of a narrative passage.
The color of the ink is recorded only when it indicates that a revision was made later than the inscription of the manuscript. Asterisked readings are discussed in the Textual Notes. “Above” in the description signifies “interlined” and “over” signifies “in the same space.” The presence of a caret is always noted. Square brackets signify one or more illegible letters; letters within square brackets are conjectural.
Word-Division: When a possible compound is hyphenated at the end of a line in the copy-text, it is reproduced in this volume according to the author's usual practice. His practice is determined by other appearances of the word or by parallels within the manuscript when possible, or by his practice in other works of the period when it is not. The word-division tables list the words as they appear in the present text.
Page and line numbers do not include titles or chapter headings.