Mark Twain's correspondence with the
San Francisco ALTA CALIFORNIA
The following
letters of Mark Twain to the San Francisco Alta California were
collected and published by Franklin Walker and G. Ezra Dane in 1940 in
a book titled Mark Twain's Travels with Mr. Brown -- Mr. Brown
being a fictitious traveling partner. In a review of the book on October
15, 1940 , The New York Times noted:
They
are amusing and interesting letters, not at all the usual sort of exhibit
discovered by pious scholars in old newspaper files. Covering the six
months immediately preceding Twain's departure for Europe, they describe
his trip from California to New York via Nicaragua, his impressions
of a brief and not too nostalgic visit to Hannibal and St. Louis, and
his reactions to the "overgrown metropolis" itself. Twain
enjoyed New York, although of course he made fun of it, and most readers
will enjoy his comments here and throughout.
- The New York Times, Oct. 15, 1940
From June
- November 1867, Twain traveled throughout Europe aboard the Quaker City
steamship and continued to write letters to the Alta. These letters
were collected and published in TRAVELING WITH THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,
Mark Twain's Original Reports from Europe and the Holy Land, edited
by Daniel Morley McKeithan (University of Oklahoma Press, 1958.) The book
is currently out of print but frequently available from used book stores
and through interlibrary loan Approximately 50 of those letters were revised
and published in The
Innocents Abroad. Texts
from some of the original letters that were omitted from The Innocents
Abroad can be viewed online at: "Reporting
the Holy Land Excursion."
After returning
to the states, Twain continued to contribute letters to the Alta
-- most of them have never before been republished. They include:
January
8, 1868 - HOME AGAIN January 15, 1868 - MARK TWAIN IN WASHINGTON.
(includes "The Hawaiian Treaty") January 21, 1868 - LETTER FROM "MARK
TWAIN." (includes "Our Purchases" and "Return of the
Sutro Tunnel") January 22, 1868 - LETTER FROM "MARK
TWAIN. (correspondence of the New York Citizen) January 28, 1868 - MARK TWAIN IN WASHINGTON.
(includes "How State Secrets Leak Out" and "Hawaiian Harris") February 5, 1868 - MARK TWAIN IN WASHINGTON.
(includes "Charles Dickens" and "Jump's Pictures") February 11, 1868 - MARK TWAIN IN WASHINGTON.
(includes "British Impudence") February 14, 1868 - MARK TWAIN IN WASHINGTON.
(includes "General Grant Receives His Friends") February 19, 1868 - MARK TWAIN IN WASHINGTON.
(includes "The McCardle Case") March 3, 1868 - MARK TWAIN ON HIS TRAVELS.
(includes "A Glimpse of Hartford") September 6, 1868 - LETTER FROM MARK TWAIN
(includes "Captain Ned Wakeman" and "Morality and Huckleberries") November 15, 1868 - LETTER FROM "MARK
TWAIN." (includes "The Wicked Wickedest Man") November 22, 1868 - LETTER FROM "MARK
TWAIN." (includes "A Connecticut Legend") July 25, 1869 - LETTER FROM MARK TWAIN. -
"A First Visit in Boston" August 1, 1869 - LETTER FROM MARK TWAIN. (includes
"Crown Prince of Timbuctoo", "Blind Tom", and "How
is Your Avitor?") December 14, 1872 - Appeal for Capt. Ned Wakeman
