Fanfare for the Common Man (1869)
Chapter 42 of "Rebel With a Cause: Mark Twain's Hidden Memoirs"
Chapter 42
Fanfare for the Common Man (1869)My book The Innocents Abroad was finally published in the summer of 1869, following much delay and foot-dragging by my publishers, who didn’t know what to make of its irreverent tone and, as they considered it, ribald humor. They were not accustomed to publishing books of that sort. Nobody was.
Under increasing pressure and threats from me, they finally released the book to the public. Soon, sales of the book were doing well. One of the reasons for this was that it had gotten a good review from William Dean Howells, editor of The Atlantic Monthly. Although Howells gave my name as “Clements” in that review, I forgave him for that due to his warm recommendation of my book, and I soon thereafter sought him out in his office in Boston, a meeting which marked the beginning of a lifelong friendship.
EDITOR’S NOTES: Twain’s publishers at the time, the American Publishing Company, normally produced serious religious tomes. Perhaps they had assumed that Twain’s book would be along their normal line and tone, as it was about a trip to “The Holy Land.” Although they should have been generally aware of the tone of Twain’s writing, they may not have fully realized just how strident and bombastic some of it would turn out to be.***Howells’ review of The Innocents Abroad can be read here, from the December 1869 issue of The Atlantic Monthly.The first review of The Innocents Abroad (prior to the one written by Howells), which appeared in a Hartford, Connecticut newspaper, was also a positive one. The first review in a big city daily (also positive), was written by Whitelaw Reid, for the New York Tribune.Twain also received a very positive private review in the form of a personal letter from Oliver Wendell Holmes, who ended by opining, “take my word for it your book is very entertaining and will give a great deal of pleasure.”The amazon page for “Rebel With a Cause: Mark Twain's Hidden Memoirs” is here.
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