In 1880, George Gebbie suggested to Mark Twain that he publish an anthology of humorous works. The idea evolved into a project financed by Clemens to produce an anthology of American humor with himself as editor and Howells and Clark assisting. Clemens did the least work on the project but remained in control and had the final say in everything. He realized how minor his role had been and wanted to put Howells's name on the title page. However, a legal agreement with Harper and Brothers prevented this, stipulating that Howells' name would only appear on their publications. Harper and Brothers wanted US$2,500 (approximately $50,000 with inflation) for a release, compelling Howells to sign the Introduction as "The Associate Editors." The book was published in 1888 by Charles L. Webster & Company. When that firm collapsed in 1894, Harper and Brothers took over the publication of all of Clemens' work. The Library of Humor was a valuable piece, containing many copyrighted works by many distinguished and popular authors. Secretary of Harper and Brothers Frederick A. Duneka had it revamped and expanded by Burges Johnson for a multi-volume revival in 1906. The title and Apology were kept, but the result was wildly different; Clemens's reaction is suggested by the title of Johnson's Fall 1937 article in the Mark Twain Quarterly, "When Mark Twain Cursed Me." One authority has even stated that it should be called The Harper Library of Humor.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by American author Mark Twain that was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature." Twain's novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the "Great American Novel." He also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894) and cowrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner.
William Dean Howells was an American realist novelist, literary critic, and playwright, nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters". He was particularly known for his tenure as editor of The Atlantic Monthly, as well as for the novels The Rise of Silas Lapham and A Traveler from Altruria, and the Christmas story "Christmas Every Day," which was adapted into a 1996 film of the same name.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich was an American writer, poet, critic, and editor. He is notable for his long editorship of The Atlantic Monthly, during which he published writers including Charles W. Chesnutt. He was also known for his semi-autobiographical book The Story of a Bad Boy, which established the "bad boy's book" subgenre in nineteenth-century American literature, and for his poetry.
Roughing It is a book of semi-autobiographical travel literature by Mark Twain. It was written in 1870–71 and published in 1872, following his first travel book The Innocents Abroad (1869). Roughing It is dedicated to Twain's mining companion Calvin H. Higbie, later a civil engineer who died in 1914.
The Autobiography of Mark Twain is a written collection of reminiscences, the majority of which were dictated during the last few years of the life of American author Mark Twain (1835–1910) and left in typescript and manuscript at his death. The Autobiography comprises a collection of anecdotes and ruminations rather than a conventional autobiography. Twain never compiled the writings and dictations into a publishable form in his lifetime. Despite indications from Twain that he did not want his autobiography to be published for a century, he serialized selected chapters during his lifetime; in addition, various compilations were published during the 20th century. However, it was not until 2010 that the first volume of a comprehensive three-volume collection, compiled and edited by The Mark Twain Project of the Bancroft Library at University of California, Berkeley, was published.
Charles Dudley Warner was an American essayist, novelist, and friend of Mark Twain, with whom he co-authored the novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.
William Wright (1829–1898), better known by the pen name Dan DeQuille or Dan De Quille, was an American author, journalist, and humorist. He was best known for his written accounts of the people, events, and silver mining operations on the Comstock Lode at Virginia City, Nevada, including his non-fiction book History of the Big Bonanza.
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte is an 1896 novel by Mark Twain which recounts the life of Joan of Arc.
Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber was an American printer, editor, and humorist. He often wrote under the guise of his fictional character Mrs. Partington.
Henry Louis Stephens was an American illustrator and editorial cartoonist.
The Whole Family: a Novel by Twelve Authors (1908) is a collaborative novel told in twelve chapters, each by a different author. This unusual project was conceived by novelist William Dean Howells and carried out under the direction of Harper's Bazaar editor Elizabeth Jordan, who would write one of the chapters herself. Howells's idea for the novel was to show how an engagement or marriage would affect and be affected by an entire family. The project became somewhat curious for the way the authors' contentious interrelationships mirrored the sometimes dysfunctional family they described in their chapters. Howells had hoped Mark Twain would be one of the authors, but Twain did not participate. Other than Howells himself, Henry James was probably the best-known author to contribute. The novel was serialized in Harper's Bazaar in 1907–08 and published as a book by Harper's in late 1908.
Jean Webster was the pen name of Alice Jane Chandler Webster, an American author whose books include Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy. Her best-known books feature lively and likeable young female protagonists who come of age intellectually, morally, and socially, but with enough humor, snappy dialogue, and gently biting social commentary to make her books palatable and enjoyable to contemporary readers.
Charles Heber Clark was an American novelist and humorist. Most of his work was written under the pen name Max Adeler. Clark was also known by the pseudonym John Quill.
Mortimer Neal Thomson was an American journalist and humorist who wrote under the pseudonym Q. K. Philander Doesticks. He was born in Riga, New York and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He attended Michigan University but was expelled along with several others either for his involvement in secret societies or for "too much enterprise in securing subjects for the dissecting room." After a brief period working in theater, he became a journalist and lecturer.
Charles Luther Webster served as Mark Twain's business manager and was eventually installed as the head of Twain's publishing company, Charles L. Webster and Co., named for Webster.
The use of the pen name of Mark Twain first occurred in Samuel Clemens's writing while in the Nevada Territory which he had journeyed to with his brother. Clemens/Twain lived in Nevada from 1861 to 1864, and visited the area twice after leaving. Historians such as Peter Messent see Clemens's time in Nevada as "the third major formative period of Mark Twain's career" due to his encounters with "writers and humorists who would both shape and put the finishing touches on his literary art." The Routledge Encyclopedia of Mark Twain states that despite the few "disagreeable experiences" he had there, Twain "thrived in Nevada." Among those things he learned was "how far he could push a joke", a lesson learned from some "disagreeable experiences" he brought upon himself.
Charles L. Webster and Company was an American subscription publishing firm founded in New York in 1884 by author and journalist Samuel Clemens, popularly known as Mark Twain. The firm was closed after declaring bankruptcy in 1894.
From 1862 to 1865, Samuel Clemens wrote for Virginia City, Nevada's leading newspaper, Territorial Enterprise. There, his literary skills were first realized and he first used the pen name Mark Twain.
Jap Herron: A Novel Written From The Ouija Board is a 1917 novel that author and self-proclaimed medium Emily Grant Hutchings claimed was written by Mark Twain, seven years after his death. Hutchings said that the novel was dictated to her and medium Lola Hays from beyond the grave by the deceased Twain through use of a Ouija board.
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