Apr 22, 2010

And Twain Shall Meet

Sorry.

Kipling meets Mark Twain. PDF.

Story of the Week: An Interview with Mark Twain


"You are a contemptible lot, over yonder. Some of you are Commissioners, and some Lieutenant-Governors, and some have the V. C., and a few are privileged to walk about the Mall arm in arm with the Viceroy; but I have seen Mark Twain this golden morning, have shaken his hand, and smoked a cigar—no, two cigars—with him, and talked with him for more than two hours! Understand clearly that I do not despise you; indeed, I don’t. I am only very sorry for you, from the Viceroy downward. To soothe your envy and to prove that I still regard you as my equals, I will tell you all about it."
More on Mark Twain, who apparently had the habit of making voluminous marginalia- he fiercely annotated as read on, and some of these books are now in a collection.

New York Times
"“Twain could just lacerate a book,” said Kevin Mac Donnell, a collector of rare books in Austin, Tex. who owns more than 150 books once owned by Twain. Badly written books bore the brunt of his annotations, Mr. Mac Donnell said, but the author “would also correct a book if he thought it was a gem.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he corrected the Bible and Shakespeare,” he added. "