FullReads

Washington, D. C.
July 7, 1880
My dear Gunn:

I have your letter, and the proposition which you make to pull a few proofs of the masterpiece is highly attractive, and of course highly immoral. I cannot properly consent to it, and I am afraid the great many 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 these proofs, save me one.

Very truly yours,
John Hay.

Thus was this Elizabethan dialogue poured into the moulds of cold type. According to Merle Johnson, Mark Twain’s bibliographer, it was issued in pamphlet form, without wrappers or covers; there were 8 pages of text and the pamphlet measured 7 by 8 1/2 inches. Only four copies are believed to have been printed, one for Hay, one for Gunn, and two for Twain.

“In the matter of humor,” wrote Clemens, referring to Hay’s delicious notes, “what an unsurpassable touch John Hay had!”

HUMOR AT WEST POINT

The first printing of 1601 in actual book form was “Donne at ye Academie Press,” in 1882, West Point, New York, under the supervision of Lieut. C. E. S. Wood, then adjutant of the U. S. Military Academy.

In 1882 Mark Twain and Joe Twichell visited their friend Lieut. Wood at West Point, where they learned that Wood, as Adjutant, had under his control a small printing establishment. On Mark’s return to Hartford, Wood received a letter asking if he would do Mark a great favor by printing something he had written, which he did not care to entrust to the ordinary printer. Wood replied that he would be glad to oblige. On April 3, 1882, Mark sent the manuscript:

“I enclose the original of 1603 [sic] as you suggest. I am afraid there are errors in it, also, heedlessness in antiquated spelling–e’s stuck on often at end of words where they are not strickly necessary, etc….. I would go through the manuscript but I am too much driven just now, and it is not important anyway. I wish you would do me the kindness to make any and all corrections that suggest themselves to you.

“Sincerely yours,
“S. L. Clemens.”

Charles Erskine Scott Wood recalled in a foreword, which he wrote for the limited edition of 1601 issued by the Grabhorn Press, how he felt when he first saw the original manuscript. “When I read it,” writes Wood, “I felt that the character of it would be carried a little better by a printing which pretended to the eye that it was contemporaneous with the pretended ‘conversation.’

“I wrote Mark that for literary effect I thought there should be a species of forgery, though of course there was no effort to actually deceive a scholar. Mark answered that I might do as I liked;–that his only object was to secure a number of copies, as the demand for it was becoming burdensome, but he would be very grateful for any interest I brought to the doing.

“Well, Tucker [foreman of the printing shop] and I soaked some handmade linen paper in weak coffee, put it as a wet bundle into a warm room to mildew, dried it to a dampness approved by Tucker and he printed the ‘copy’ on a hand press. I had special punches cut for such Elizabethan abbreviations as the a, e, o and u, when followed by m or n–and for the (commonly and stupidly pronounced ye).

“The only editing I did was as to the spelling and a few old English words introduced. The spelling, if I remember correctly, is mine, but the text is exactly as written by Mark. I wrote asking his view of making the spelling of the period and he was enthusiastic–telling me to do whatever I thought best and he was greatly pleased with the result.”