MR. HOTTEN'S EDITION OF "MARK TWAIN."
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1
SIR,—At the suggestion of a correspondent, you state in your last. number that I have published some sketches as the production of "Mark Twain" which in reality are not his, but somebody else's ; and you further say that a new gathering of Sketches, " revised" and selected by the author, is about to appear in London, from, another publishing house.
Perhaps you will permit me to reply to these statements ?
In the first place, I may remark that nothing has been issued here by me as "Mark Twain's" which has not already been pub- lished in the United States or elsewhere under this signature, or under that of "Carl Byng," another nom de plume of the same- author. True it is, that Mrs. John Wood, the American actress, published in her "Bill of the Play" a story entitled "Vengeance, by Mark Twain," but directly the editor of Cassell's Magazine- announced himself as the author I withdrew it from my collection..
2. I would state that so far from the new gathering of "Mark Twain's Sketches," just issued by Messrs. George Routledge and Sons, being "revised and collected by the author," the work con- sists simply of my own revised editions transposed,—in fact, my little books seem to have been sent to some one in New York, who has returned the "Sketches" intact, but with the arrangement a little altered, and the stories in the "Jumping Frog" volume sorted in to give the appearance of a fresh collection. That the author, Mr. Samuel L. Clemens, has done this one cannot very well believe, as he would not be likely to adopt a London version. of his "Sketches," and call it his own ; it is not reasonable to- suppose he would do anything of the kind.
Amongst other fugitive pieces I culled was one from a Phila- delphia paper, a most amusing but—as I took the liberty of thinking—rather strongly-worded article entitled "Journalism in, Tennessee," and finding that the fun was just as good with certain forcible expressions left out, I weeded it of such phrases. as "not stop to chew a lie," "bumming his board," " hell- spawned miscreant," "teaming animated tank of mendacity, gin, and profanity,"—I say I weeded out these and many other forcible expressions—and what is strange is that precisely these omissions,, with other alterations, occur in this new and so-called "revised collection of Mark Twain's Sketches " ! There were some paragraphs, too, that I had collected as by "Mark Twain," and to these I affixed headings which I thought sufficiently appro- priate. Precisely these headings now appear in the new collec- tion advertised as having been " revised " by the author. For instance, a trifle headed "The 'Present' Nuisance," I thought would be better explained if called "The Poor Editor." This latter heading is given to the article in the new edition issued as- " revised by the author."
The same punctuation, the same italics, the same omission of unnecessary lines adopted in my edition, all will be found in this. new edition said to be "revised by the author."—I am, &c.,
[All we can say is, that we have ourselves seen marked as " spurious " in what is alleged to be, and we believe to be, Mark Twain's own writing, one of the Essays in Mr. Hotten's edition, and that we are told there are four or five more marked in the- same way ; and that we know on the same authority (Mark Twain's own handwriting) that Messrs. Routledge's edition is revised by himself, and that he has received some payment for it from the publishers.—En. Spectator.]
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