|
||
| [ C L O S E ] | ||
|
COLLECTING MARK TWAIN: A HISTORY AND THREE NEW PATHS By Kevin Mac Donnell Copyright © 1998 Firsts Magazine, Inc. Used by permission.
 Mark Twain's world-wide appeal endures because
his writings appeal to very different people in very different
ways. Many of his contemporary readers saw him as a sort of genial
corn-pone clown, a grandfatherly figure with a benign wit, and
for better or worse, this is the image that persists in the popular
mind today. Literary critics are drawn to Twain because his works
herald the beginning of modern American literature. Scholars
of American culture admire him as an incisive social critic.
Biographers view him with fascination as one of the first American
celebrities, forced to balance the dualities of a private life
that was at sharp variance from his public persona. That public
persona persists for many who have never read HUCK FINN. They
know Twain only through his oft-quoted --and often misattributed--
aphorisms. If they do know anything of HUCK FINN, they accept
the movie versions of his masterpiece --a sentimental paean to
a lost idyllic collective American childhood. And yet, despite
the distortion inherent in his public image, he remains a larger
than life figure in the pantheon of American literary giants
because he is widely embraced as a quintessential American icon,
a symbol that embodies all the positive cultural attributes that
Americans project on themselves. Readers are quick to empathize
with the ironic stance in his writings, which usually involves
someone like ourselves (or so we like to think) struggling to
resolve the basic conflicts that we all face in ways that are
uniquely American: cynicism tempered with humor, self-doubt balanced
by Calvinistic pride, and a genuine compassion for people that
does not preclude contempt for the outrageous foibles of society.
Twain knew the human heart, and human hearts respond.Readers of his works collect Mark Twain for the same reasons they collect any author --they enjoy owning first or significant editions of writings that connect with their own lives. That enjoyment is enhanced by knowing the story behind the publication of a book: how the author came to write that particular book, the creative process and evolution of the text, how it found its way into print, what was involved in the physical production of the volume itself, what the cultural context of the text was to its time and place, and what kind of contemporary reception it received. Books record the pulse of human existence. Their texts reflect the collective inner lives of those who preceded us, and they exist at several levels --as physical objects, as texts, as concrete icons, as abstract symbols-- and the more levels at which a book is experienced (or a rock, for that matter) the more that book-collecting is integrated with the collector's inner life. For collectors of Mark Twain first editions the thrill of the hunt is magnified by the fact that his first editions, with a few notable exceptions, were produced in relatively large numbers, making him one of the easier nineteenth authors to collect with a reasonable expectation of completing a collection. While some of his first editions can cost thousands of dollars, most cost hundreds, and even those that cost thousands in fine condition in the first states, can be found for hundreds when in later states and in less than perfect condition. Collectors are usually astonished that they can buy most of Twain's first editions for the same prices they'd expect to pay for widely collected contemporary authors (some of whom could still end up footnotes in the literary histories of the next century). Building a comprehensive collection of first editions is virtually impossible today for collectors of Whitman, Poe, Melville, and Hawthorne, some of whose works are extremely rare and expensive, while some others don't appear for sale at any price. Even for more affordable nineteenth century authors whose works are out of fashion --like Longfellow, Holmes, Howells, or Whittier-- there are some books that simply never appear in the market. Unlike most other major nineteenth century literary authors, Twain's works were generally issued in colorful pictorial bindings, or with lavish illustrations that were sometimes closely supervised by Twain himself. And Twain wrote in a wide variety of forms: novels, stories, plays, sketches, political diatribes, after-dinner speeches, travel narratives, juveniles, essays, book reviews, biography, autobiography, and letters. The availability, beauty, and variety of his first editions makes collecting Twain a rewarding pursuit.  That pursuit had already
begun as early as 1885 when a rare book dealer in New York, Leon
& Brothers, issued the first rare book catalogue ever devoted
exclusively to American authors. It included a listing of thirteen
of Twain's first editions for sale. THE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG
was offered at $1.25 --at a time when new books sold for $1 or
$2. Today, that book would be offered for least $12,500, while
new books average $15 to $30. The most expensive book in 1885,
THE INNOCENTS ABROAD, was $3.00, and HUCK FINN, just published,
was priced at $2.75. Clearly, Twain collecting was in its infancy,
with prices reflecting the publication prices of each title rather
than the relative rarity of each first edition. And books were
not the only thing being collected.As early as 1884, Twain was complaining of requests for his autograph, prompting George W. Cable, a friend and fellow author, to secretly send out one hundred and fifty letters to their mutual friends, asking that each one write Twain a letter requesting his autograph, timing them to arrive on April Fool's Day. By 1893, Twain was well aware of the collectors' market for his works, and proposed to his English publisher, Chatto & Windus, that they print a limited edition of one of his poems and offer it to collectors. Relatively few people, then or now, were aware that Twain wrote poetry, and the publisher wisely declined. About ten years later Twain saw his autograph being offered in a catalogue that arrived in the mail, and was furious (and perhaps secretly flattered) that somebody would sell his clipped signature for the princely sum of $5. It is said he thereafter would only sign books on the inside front cover to prevent people from cutting out his signature and selling it. Most of the books Twain inscribed during the last ten years of his life were indeed inscribed on the inside front cover, while most of the books he inscribed earlier were inscribed on end papers, flyleaves, or half-titles. Despite his misgivings, Twain was generous to people requesting his autograph in books or on menus, and he once allowed a collector (one Reverend Powers) to send him his entire collection, a few books at a time, each with a question on the end paper where Twain was expected to write his answer beneath. Twain dutifully complied, but some questions were insipid and others were unintentionally insulting, with the result that as the good Reverend sent each batch, Twain's answers got shorter and shorter. The Reverend Powers' collection was sold at auction in 1911, and they still surface in the market from time to time. Autograph collecting is beyond the scope of this article, but a note of warning is in order. Unlike many modern celebrities, Twain generously complied with most autograph requests, and he produced a mass of correspondence, legal documents, and manuscripts. Machlis' UNION LIST records roughly ten thousand surviving letters written by Twain. That figure does not include his manuscripts, most of which survive, or autograph cards that he signed on request. Consider that Twain is estimated to have written at least five times this many letters during more than fifty years of active letter-writing, and that very few people who got letters from Twain threw them away. Consider also that Twain has attracted more than his share of forgers, beginning in the 1920s and continuing to the present day. Putting aside the issue of forgeries, and allowing for letters that have been in the market more than once during the last twenty years, more than five hundred genuine autograph letters and documents have appeared at auction alone in the last twenty years, and at least half as many more have been sold by dealers. Autograph collectors should know that his autograph material, while in great demand, is not in short supply. Unlike his books, prices for his autographs have been volatile, bouncing up and down in recent years. The most significant runs of his letters, as well as several major autograph collections, have appeared at Christie's and Sotheby's, and autograph collectors would be wise to study closely the annual auction indexes, and subscribe to the catalogues of those two auction firms (and others). While Twain's autographs are attractive and plentiful in the market, the vast majority of Twain collecting has been focused on his first editions. During the last months of Twain's life, a rare book dealer, Merle Johnson, began his bibliography of Twain's works and sent the manuscript to Harper Brothers for approval. He concluded his contract negotiations in May, 1910, just one month after Twain's death, and his bibliography appeared that November in an edition of 500 copies, pointing the direction for Twain collectors for the next quarter century, until Johnson revised his bibliography just before his death in 1935. Johnson's assistant, Jake Blanck, saw the revised edition through the press, and in 1957, as editor of THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE (BAL), he published what is now the standard bibliography of Twain's works as part of the second volume of that nine-volume monumental guide to American literature of the nineteenth century. Johnson had included Twain's magazine appearances in his bibliography, but only a few advanced collectors strayed from collecting first editions. Some have collected Twain's first magazine appearances, especially coveting the May 1, 1852 issue of 'The Carpet-Bag' containing his first published story, or the November, 1866 issue of 'Harper's New Monthly Magazine' containing his first writing to appear in a nationally circulated journal, or the 1884/5 issues of 'The Century Magazine' containing several chapters of HUCK FINN, which appeared prior to the book. BAL gave hints of some new directions in Twain collecting, by listing English and Canadian editions overlooked by Johnson, but most collectors, then and now, have "followed the flag," conforming to the tradition of collecting the first American editions of American authors. Some have collected the English or Canadian editions when they could be proved to be the true first edition, or in cases where they contained first printings of some stories, but the American first editions are the quarry that remain firmly in the crosshairs of Twain collectors. Next month, we will suggest some new paths for those who seek the thrill of the hunt. This article first appeared in Firsts: the Book Collector's Magazine, 1998. Copyright © by Firsts Magazine, Inc. No portion of this article may be reproduced or redistributed without their express written permission. |