Introduction
Known to Everyone - Liked by All:
The Business of Being Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, the author known to the world as Mark Twain, died on April 21, 1910. Cornell University Library observes the centenary of his death with an exhibition commemorating the life and work of this American icon. Featuring the Mark Twain collection of Susan Jaffe Tane, this exhibition of books, letters, manuscripts, photographs, and other artifacts celebrates Clemens’s life and his publishing career as Mark Twain.
Samuel Clemens worked as a printer’s assistant and journeyman printer, a “cub reporter,” a steamboat pilot, an irregular soldier, a gold prospector, a silver miner, and a newspaper reporter before he adopted the pen name “Mark Twain” in 1863 at the age of twenty-eight. Over the course of the next forty-eight years he would make his living as a travel correspondent, a humorist, a lecturer, an entrepreneur and inventor, a novelist, a magazine writer, a publisher, and an investor. He also became “the most conspicuous person on the planet,” a worldly sage whose advice was sought after, and a celebrity whose endorsements—authorized or not—sold books, magazines, newspapers, and assorted merchandise.
Samuel Clemens’s business was to be Mark Twain, and Mark Twain brought him fame and fortune. But Mark Twain was also the first to admit: “My axiom is, to succeed in business: avoid my example.”
Acknowledgments
Known to Everyone—Liked by All features the extraordinary Mark Twain collection of Susan Jaffe Tane. The exhibition, accompanying web site, catalog and opening lecture were funded through her generosity and commitment. Cornell University Library gratefully acknowledges her contributions, and dedicates this exhibition to her.
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Ignace Spiridon. Chromolithograph portrait of Mark Twain. New York: U.S. Lithograph Company [for Shipman Brothers], 1901. [zoom] This color lithograph was produced in 1901 from an 1898 portrait painted in Vienna by Italian artist Ignace Spiridon. In a letter to his publisher, Frank Bliss, Clemens wrote that this portrait was: “a long way the best I have ever had, and much better than any photograph from life can ever be.” From the collection of Susan Jaffe Tane |
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Armor Bronze. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn Bookends. [ca. 1925]. [zoom] From the collection of Susan Jaffe Tane |
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Samuel Johnson Woolf. Lithograph Portrait of Mark Twain. [zoom] The artist Samuel Johnson Woolf visited the Clemens residence on Fifth Avenue in New York in 1906 to paint the author’s portrait. Woolf wrote of this experience: “For the painting which I did of him he sat in the large bow window of one of his rooms. But my lithograph was made from a pencil sketch which I drew one day when he was not feeling well and had received me while he was still in his huge bed with its carved cherubim in the room on the second floor.” From the collection of Susan Jaffe Tane |
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Mark Twain. Letter on literary piracy. Hartford, Connecticut, June 21. [1875]. Framed with photograph of Mark Twain. [zoom] Clemens thanks a “respectable Boston publisher” for informing him about a man named Greer who was attempting to pirate some Mark Twain materials: Gentlemen: I thank you very much for exposing this man Greer’s projects to me. He is a common thief. He is the same chap who gets up the notorious black-mailing biographies of leather-headed nobodies. All of my stuff is amply protected, & none of it for sale—as Mr. Greer shall find to his serious cost the first time he closes a trade for any of it. I am exposing this filthy thief in to-morrow’s Courant. If he will only carry out his promise word & call upon me he shall need assistance to get off the premises again. Thankfully yours, Saml. L. Clemens. From the collection of Susan Jaffe Tane |
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Compton Label Works. Smoke the Popular Mark Twain Cigars Sold Everywhere. St. Louis, [ca. 1877-85]. [zoom] It is not known when this cigar sign was first issued. The portrait is engraved after an 1874 profile photograph that was used on Mark Twain Cigars advertising as early as 1877. From the collection of Susan Jaffe Tane |
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Lithographic Portrait of Mark Twain. Chicago: Kurz & Allison, ca. 1890. [zoom] This portrait is believed to have been made as part of a “famous authors” series of lithographs published by the Chicago firm of Kurz & Allison (1880-1899), which was well known for its production of commemorative prints of Civil War battles and other American historical scenes. From the collection of Susan Jaffe Tane |
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“Stormfield.” Redding, Connecticut, October 7, 1908. Broadside signed and inscribed by Twain, with by a modern photographic print of Twain. [zoom] In 1907 Clemens moved to his new home, “Stormfield,” in Redding, Connecticut. To honor him, the town established a new public library bearing his name. Publishers had donated books, but as Clemens pointed out: “There is yet one detail lacking: a building for the library.” To raise funds for the structure, Clemens proposed “a tax...of one dollar, not upon the valuable sex, but only upon the other one. Guests of the valuable sex are tax-free, and shall so remain; but guests of the other sex must pay, whether they are willing or not.” From the collection of Susan Jaffe Tane |
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