Mark Twain and Bret Harte: A Mysterious Early Piracy in Context

I

On 14 March 1866 an anthology of humorous writings called Wit and Humor; or, Odds and Ends was advertised in the New York Daily Tribune. Readers were encouraged to send the publisher, J. R. Sutherland and Co. of Philadelphia, $1.50 for a cloth-bound book or $1.00 for a paperback; in return they would receive a “thick volume” of selections, many by featured contributors with nationally recognized names. From that date the volume was the subject of an extensive advertising campaign which did not end until the third week of May.

Advertisements for Wit and Humor, in four textually distinct versions, appeared in at least nine prominent American publications. The Tribune advertisement ran in each issue through 20 March. On 17 March the same text began appearing in the New York Saturday Press (see figure 1), the leading paper of America’s Bohemian avant-garde, where it was printed, with evident care, ultimately in nine consecutive issues. Starting on 25 March this Tribune-Saturday Press version was in turn published in two issues running of the New York Sunday Mercury, one of the widest-circulating periodicals in the nation. A second version, with wording that described an apparently later conception of the volume, likewise began on 14 March, in the Washington, D.C., Daily National Republican. This form was in turn printed in the Round Table (see figure 2), New York’s self-consciously stuffy literary weekly, on 24 and 31 March. The text is also distinguished by the inclusion of “Mrs. Partington” as a contributor and the omission of “Pomeroy Brick.” On 15 March a third version, reflecting the change to Mrs. Partington and today conspicuous for the error “Mark Train,” made the first of six appearances in the New York Times. This text, misprint and all, would reappear later in the month, beginning on 26 March, in six issues of the Boston Evening Transcript. A fourth version, including both “Mrs. Partington” and “Pomeroy Brick” but omitting “Josh Billings,” appeared in every issue of the New York Evening Express from 23 through 31 March and in every issue of the Springfield (Mass.) Republican from 27 March through 2 April.¹

The anthology was likely a piracy: of the contributors named in the advertisements, most had national reputations, and all but two had already published their works in authorized editions. The two exceptions were “‘Bret,’ of The Californian” and Mark Twain. Depending on how the measurement is taken, Wit and Humor was their first book.

“Bret” was of course Francis Bret Harte (1836–1902). He had already edited a book, Outcroppings: Being Selections of California Verse, which was published by Anton Roman in San Francisco in December 1865 (copyrighted 1866). Harte selected many of the poems in this volume, but included none of his own; he wrote a brief preface, but did not sign it. The first authorized book of his own writings would be called Condensed Novels and Other Papers. When assembled, the manuscript for this volume would consist mainly of pieces written for the Californian, a San Francisco literary weekly founded in 1864 by New York transplant and Outcroppings contributor Charles Henry Webb (1834–1905). Harte and Webb alternately edited the Californian, and in seeking a publisher for his collection, Harte may have consulted with his more worldly colleague. Eventually secured (with the help of the New York agent of Anton Roman) was George W. Carleton, Webb’s friend and publisher and the publisher of a number of other notable humorists, including Artemus Ward. When Harte’s book appeared in October 1867, it drew favorable notices, but the author soon grew unhappy in his relationship with Carleton. In a letter to James R. Osgood, he revealed that his arrangement with Carleton was informal and expressed a desire to have Osgood’s company publish a revised Condensed Novels (this came to pass in 1871). Harte also revealed that Carleton printed 1,800 copies of the original edition and intended

Figure 1.

One of the versions of the advertisement...