No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger
Page 23
towel] In 1886, in his speech to the Typothetae, Clemens noted that one of the apprentice’s duties was to replace the towel, “which was not considered soiled until it could stand alone” (“The Typothetae Dinner,” Publishers Weekly 29 [23 Jan 86]: 103).
turned letters] Letters set upside down.
tympan] In a handpress, the thin wooden frame across which is stretched cloth or parchment and upon which the sheet about to be printed is laid.
type] A single letter or mark of punctuation cast on the top surface of a block of type metal. One of the apprentice’s duties was to gather up type dropped to the floor by the compositors, and to put the good type in the pi-pile and the broken type in the hell-box.
work off] To print off.
wrong fonts] The mistake in composition of using a letter of the wrong size or of different design from the rest.
Note on the Text
The text of Mark Twain’s novel published here is a photographic reproduction of the typesetting first published in 1969 by the University of California Press in Mark Twain’s Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts, edited by William M. Gibson (pp. 201–405). That text was carefully established from the manuscript, and the typesetting meticulously checked, by Professor Gibson and the staff of the Mark Twain Project in accord with the standards of the Center for Editions of American Authors (CEAA) and with generous financial support from the Editing Program of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), an independent federal agency. The 1969 edition brought into print, for the first time, three quite different versions of Mark Twain’s story about a superhuman character, which the author left in manuscript at the time of his death in 1910: “The Chronicle of Young Satan,” some 55,000 words written in several stints during the years from 1897 to 1900, and left incomplete; “Schoolhouse Hill,” some 15,000 words written in 1898 and also left incomplete; and “No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger,” some 65,000 words written mostly between 1902 and 1905, and last worked on in 1908. All three manuscripts are in the Mark Twain Papers in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley.
These materials were available to Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain’s literary executor, and Frederick A. Duneka, an editor at Harper and Brothers, when they prepared a posthumous publication of the story which appeared in 1916, bearing the title The Mysterious Stranger. For their edition they used the earliest rather than the latest of the manuscripts (“Chronicle” instead of “No. 44”), and they took extraordinary liberties with what Mark Twain had written. They deleted fully one-fourth of the author’s words; they wrote into the story the character of an astrologer, who did not even appear in the manuscript, letting him assume most of the villainies Mark Twain had assigned to the bad priest, Father Adolf. And, since the “Chronicle” version was incomplete, they appropriated the concluding chapter Mark Twain had written for his latest and longest version, “No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger,” altering the names of the characters in order to make the ending consistent with “Chronicle.” The editors said nothing about their alterations, and the facts were not known even to scholars familiar with the manuscripts until John S. Tuckey published Mark Twain and Little Satan in 1963. These events may suffice to show why the version of his novel that Mark Twain wrote last, and the only one that he completed, has so long remained unknown and unread.
The present text differs from the original 1969 typesetting in only one feature: it adopts the full title and subtitle preserved in Mark Twain’s manuscript.
Further information about Mark Twain’s composition of this novel and about related matters will be found in the original 1969 edition in the Mark Twain Papers Series as well as in the following books: John S. Tuckey, Mark Twain and Little Satan: The Writing of “The Mysterious Stranger” (West Lafayette: Purdue University Studies, 1963); John S. Tuckey, The Mysterious Stranger and the Critics (Belmont: Wads-worth Publishing Co., 1968); Sholom J. Kahn, Mark Twain’s Mysterious Stranger: A Study of the Manuscript Texts (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1978).
Robert H. Hirst
General Editor, Mark Twain Project
April 1982
The Mark Twain Papers series publishes Mark Twain’s private papers—his letters, notebooks, unpublished literary works, and autobiography. All volumes in the series are fully annotated scholarly editions that have been inspected and approved by the MLA’s Committee on Scholarly Editions (CSE). For a full list of books please visit http://www.ucpress.edu/books/series/mtp.php
The Works of Mark Twain series publishes authoritative, critical editions of Mark Twain’s published works. Based on original manuscripts or first printings, they attempt to repair the textual damage done by the author’s original typists, typesetters, and proofreaders; and they restore all of the original illustrations. Each volume is fully annotated and has been approved by the CSE. For a full list of books please visit http://www.ucpress.edu/books/series/mtw.php
The Mark Twain Library series reprints texts from the Papers and Works for students and the general reader. Issued in both paperback and cloth, volumes in the Library always include the original illustrations and explanatory notes, while omitting the textual apparatus and scholarly introduction. The series will eventually include all of Mark Twain’s best work. For a full list of books please visit http://www.ucpress.edu/books/series/mtl.php
The Jumping Frogs series brings neglected Mark Twain treasures—stories, tall tales, novels, travelogues, plays, imaginative journalism, speeches, sketches, satires, burlesques, and much more—to readers. Each volume has its own distinctive design and illustrations and is presented by editors selected from Mark Twain’s greatest enthusiasts. For a full list of books please visit http://www.ucpress.edu/books/series/jf.php
Mark Twain Project Online offers unfettered, intuitive access to reliable texts, accurate and exhaustive notes, and the most recently discovered letters and documents. Its ultimate purpose is to produce a digital critical edition, fully annotated, of everything Mark Twain wrote. MTPO was launched in 2007 by the Mark Twain Papers and Project of The Bancroft Library, the California Digital Library, and the University of California Press. For more information please visit http://www.marktwainproject.org/