Clemens, Samuel Langhorne ("Mark Twain") | Twain's rare satirical tale, privately printed

Twain, Mark

1601. Conversation, as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors. N.p. [Cleveland], N.d. [1880]

4to (231 x 178mm). Watermarked paper. One bifolia loose, adhesive stain to gutter. Wrappers with title printed in black to upper cover; covers somewhat soiled and toned with some wear to spine. Collector's black morocco clamshell box.

Twain's famously risqué and elusive work, a privately printed tall copy.

"...not printed in my published writings" is how Twain refers to this scatological work set in Queen Elizabeth's court in a letter. Written during the summer of 1876, when Twain was commencing Huckleberry Finn, this imagined Tudor tale was written purely for the private appreciation of this friend Reverend Joseph Hopkins Twichell. Due to the many pirated printings, it has become something of a bibliographical enigma.

Twain was fond of his creation, and in 1880 sent a manuscript of the amusing short story, where decidedly base matters are discussed using a lofty Tudor lexicon, to John Hay, then Assistant Secretary of State in Washington, who then sent it on to his friend Alexander Gunn in Cleveland, Ohio. In a letter dated 7 July 1880, it appears that Gunn was so taken with the piece (which Hay had asked him to read and then return), that he had proposed to informally publish it. Hay responded thus—

"I have your letter, and the proposition which you make to pull a few proofs of the master piece is highly attractive, and of course highly immoral. I cannot properly consent to it, and I am afraid the great man would think I was taking an unfair advantage of his confidence. Please send back the document as soon as you can, and if, in spite of my prohibition, you take those proofs, save me one."

His overt refusal being somewhat undermined by the final sentence, Gunn indeed proceeded to create a small brochure with the title Conversation, as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors, thus making the present example one of the very small run of about four or less copies (Kohn). The misprint on p. 1 "strangue mizing" (for "straunge mixing") is odd; but this does correspond with the Ginn-Princeton copy. This is half an inch larger than the size specified by Twain bibliographers, making this a tall copy. The wrappers may be a later addition.

Kohn calls it "an amazingly vital, perennially controversial and bibliographically tantalizing opuscule by the greatest humorist in American literature."

A tremendous rarity.

REFERENCE:

BAL 3388B; Van E. Kohn, John S. "Mark Twain's 1601." The Princeton University Library Chronicle, col. 18, no. 2, 1957, pp. 49-54