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Grolier Club Exhibitions

Twain on Stage

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Though Mark Twain is best known to us as an author of books, in his own time he was equally well known as a public speaker. He undertook several popular lecture tours during his career, and his after-dinner speeches became legendary. Clemens carefully crafted the Mark Twain persona, engaging in a lifelong performance of a beloved character.

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Joseph Keppler. Mark Twain, America’s Best Humorist. From Puck, new series, number 1. New York: Mayer, Merkel & Ottmann, December 1885. 

This color plate from the humor magazine Puck depicts Twain on stage before an amused audience, surrounded by birdlike representatives of his best-known books. 

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Samuel L. Clemens. Autograph manuscript notes for a lecture. [San Francisco, 1866.]  

This manuscript is part of the draft of Clemens’s first public lecture delivered in San Francisco. The fully-drafted speech shows that Clemens carefully prepared what he intended to say in this lecture, which he repeated at multiple venues in California. The perpendicular text overlapping the speech on the left-hand side of the manuscript is Twain’s later explanation of the document’s significance. 

Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library 

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Mark Twain. Notes in sketch form for a lecture. [England], January 9, 1874. Inscribed to Charles [Warren Stoddart]. 

This page, nearly a decade into his career as a public speaker, shows Clemens’s growing confidence on the stage. In contrast to the detailed manuscript of his 1866 speech, in this artifact of an 1874 English lecture tour he gives instead a group of mnemonic sketches to remind him of the overall flow and content of the stories to be included in the lecture. 

Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library 

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Cabinet photograph signed by Mark Twain. [N.p., ca. 1890-95.] 

This photograph of Twain is inscribed on the verso “To Mr. Lloyd, With the sincerest regards & esteem of S.L. Clemens, Melbourne, Oct. 26/95.” Clemens traveled and performed in Australia and New Zealand for 16 weeks during his world tour. 

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Mark Twain’s Tour Around the World [broadside]. [N.p.]: J.B. Pond, 1895. 

Mark Twain invested most of his wealth in a typesetting machine called the Paige Compositor in the early 1890s, and the failure of the firm that designed and manufactured the machine left him on the verge of bankruptcy. To recoup some of his losses, he undertook a world speaking tour, performing at 71 cities in 1895 and 1896. 

Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library 

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Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens). Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World. Hartford, Connecticut: The American Publishing Company, 1897. First edition. 

The tour around the world in 1895 and 1896 provided Twain with source material for a new travel book, Following the Equator, published in the United Kingdom as More Tramps Abroad. 

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The Hartford Club. Hartford, Conn.: Club House, 1909. 

The Hartford Club was organized in 1873, and Clemens joined in 1882. He is listed on page 43 of this booklet, which includes a complete list of members along with the club’s charter, constitution, and regulation. 

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Aaron Watson. The Savage Club: A Medley of History, Anecdote and Reminiscence. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1907.  

This history of London’s Savage Club includes a lengthy account of Twain’s visit there for a dinner in his honor in 1899, and summarizes a responsive speech at that event in which Twain called himself “a first-class fool.” The toastmaster, Sir John MacAlister, had facetiously insulted Clemens, stating: “Mr. Clemens had tried to be funny but had failed. . . and it would be the easiest task he ever undertook if he would try to count all the real jokes he had ever made.” Clemens opened his joking response by declaring: “Perhaps I am not a humorist, but I am a first- class fool–a simpleton; for up to this moment I have believed Chairman MacAlister to be a decent person whom I could allow to mix up with my friends and relatives.” 

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John Elderkin, Chester S. Lord, Horatio A. Fraser, eds. After Dinner Speeches at the Lotos Club. New York: Privately printed, 1901. 

Clemens was an early member of the Lotos Club, a private social club in New York with a special focus in literature and the arts. The club held several dinners in his honor; this volume contains a speech he delivered on one such occasion on November 10, 1900. 

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[Lotos Club.] Souvenir menu for dinner at the Lotos Club, January 11, 1908.  

The menu for this 1908 dinner held in honor of “Samuel L. Clemens, Litt. D.” featured a photograph of Clemens in his Oxford robes and was presented rolled up like a diploma. The fare was themed after his writings: Innocent Oysters Abroad, Roughing It Soup, Fish Huckleberry Finn, Joan of Arc Filet of Beef, Punch Brothers Punch, Hadleyburg Salad, Pudd’nhead Cheese, and White Elephant Coffee. 

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[Engineers Club.] Commemorative volume for the Engineers Club Inaugural Banquet. [New York]: December 9, 1907.  

A keepsake for a dinner that featured Andrew Carnegie as guest of honor, this volume, which is bound in Scottish tartan silk and engraved by Tiffany & Co., includes a portrait of Carnegie, illustrations of the Engineers Club clubhouses, the dinner menu and invitation, and other ephemera. It was previously owned by Cleveland engineer Ambrose Swasey, who had the pages signed by Mark Twain, Carnegie, Thomas Edison, and others. Twain entertained the attendees as a speaker, teasing the guest of honor: “just look at Mr. Carnegie’s face. It is all scintillating with fictitious innocence. You might think that he had never committed a crime.” 

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Oscar Edward Cesare. Caricature of Andrew Carnegie and Mark Twain. [New York, 1906]. 

This sketch depicts Twain delivering a speech alongside a seated Andrew Carnegie. It was drawn after a banquet held at the Engineers’ Club on April 19, 1906. 

Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library 

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[Reisenweber’s Cafe]. Menu from the “First Beefsteak Dinner of the Comic Artists, Cartoonists, Caricaturists, Humorous Writers, Comic Editors, and Other Funny Looking People.” [New York]: April 18, 1908. 

This menu contains signatures and sketches by many of the attendees, including Twain, Richard F. Outcault (creator of the Yellow Kid), animator John Randolph Bray, Louis Wain, Charles R. Macauley, R.B. McClure, and Walt McDougall. The interior lists the options available for food and drink at the banquet: in enormous type, the words “Steak” and “Beer.”  

Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library