SERIALIZATION OF “REBEL WITH A CAUSE: MARK TWAIN’S HIDDEN MEMOIRS” -- CHAPTER 34 (of 78)
Burlingame and The Hornet (1866)
Chapter 34
Burlingame and The Hornet (1866)
What Horace Bixby was for my steamboat piloting career, Anson Burlingame was for my writing career; they both prodded me to improve, albeit in different ways and with a completely different manner in how they went about it.
I met Burlingame in 1866, when he was stopping over in the Sandwich Islands on his way back to his diplomatic post in China, where he did such good work for the United States.
That amazing man helped me in both the short term and the long term. He saw something worth criticizing in me, apparently, and exhorted me to stop fooling away my time and instead concentrate on bettering myself by being more selective regarding whom it was that I chose as my personal associates. He told me to strive to always climb, and to gravitate towards those of intellect and character.
While I and the Burlingames (Anson and his son Edward, who was an admirer of the “Jumping Frog” story) were in the islands, survivors of a shipwreck arrived. A clipper ship named The Hornet had caught fire and sank. After forty-three days in a lifeboat, fourteen from the vessel finally reached the islands, safe but none-too-sound.
At the time of the news of their rescue at our shores, I was bedridden with terrible saddle sores. Here was a great occasion to get up something of note for my newspaper sponsors, and I not able to take advantage of it. Necessarily I was in deep trouble. It was by good luck indeed that his Excellency Anson Burlingame was there at the time. He and his son came to my rescue and served as my premature pallbearers, carrying me on my sickbed to where I could listen to them interview the survivors of the shipwreck. I had nothing to do but make the notes. It was just like Burlingame to take that trouble. He was a great man, and a great American; and it was in his fine nature to come down from his high office and do a friendly turn whenever he could.
We got through with the work at six in the evening. I took no dinner, for there was no time to spare if I would beat the other correspondents. I spent four hours arranging the notes in their proper order, then wrote all night and beyond it; with this result: that I had a very long and detailed account of the Hornet episode ready at nine in the morning, while the correspondents of the San Francisco journals had nothing but a brief outline report—for they didn’t sit up. The now-and-then schooner was to sail for San Francisco about nine; when I reached the dock she was free forward and was just casting off her stern-line. My fat envelope was thrown by a strong hand, and fell on board all right, and my victory was a safe thing. All in due time the ship reached San Francisco, and my story was sent to my sponsors at the Sacramento Union, which created a sensation and was reprinted across the country.
Soon after returning to San Francisco, I improved on the story. I was able to do this because on the return trip to California, three of the Hornet survivors were my fellow passengers and, after being allowed to read their diaries, I reworked the material I had written earlier, incorporating portions of those diaries. The resulting article was printed by Harper’s Magazine, with the title “Forty-three Days in an Open Boat.” Unfortunately, they gave me the byline “Mike Swain” or “McSwain”—I don’t remember which. Apparently they had proven unable to decipher my elegant calligraphy, or hieroglyphics.
I later wrote the sketch My Debut As a Literary Person based on the fact that this success–- scooping all the other reporters—was a significant stepping stone to my becoming celebrated and conspicuous, or at least brought me some recognition and respect, as a writer and then as a platform spouter—this last coming about because the Sandwich Islands was the text I used for my first appearance on the lecture platform.
EDITOR’S NOTES: The city of Burlingame, California, located seventeen miles south of San Francisco, was named for Twain’s benefactor Anson Burlingame.
***
In his 1894 sketch Private History of the “Jumping Frog” Story, Twain wrote that, “The ‘Jumping Frog’ was the first piece of writing of mine that spread itself through the newspapers and brought me into public notice.”
However, as he mentions above, in 1899 Twain wrote a piece called My Debut as a Literary Person, wherein he claims that it was not The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County that marked his debut as a literary man, but his Hornet story. He considered himself attaining thereby to that stature (of a “literary person”) even though his apparently carelessly-signed name (in those pre-typewriter and pre-computer days) lacked sufficient legibility, leading authorship of the piece to be attributed to a “Mark Swain” in the story’s byline.
You can listen to this chapter here:
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
Blackbird Crow Raven’s “Rebel With A Cause: Mark Twain’s Hidden Memoirs” is being serialized in this space on substack every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; it is also available in its entirety from here.