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Show How "Gilded Age" Was Done . i Mark Twain and Warner Wrote It to Show Their Joking Wives Just What They Could Do When They Tried. The late Stephen A. Hubbard, who was for many years the managing editor and one of the owners of the Hartford (Conn.) Courant when Joseph Jo-seph R. Hawley was editor and Charles Dudley Warner, the author and humorist, co-editor, told me this, tho real story of the manner in which Mark Twain and Mr. Warner came to write "The Gilded Age," which was published in 1873. "After Mark Twain came to Hartford Hart-ford to live," said Mr. Hubbard, "he early made the acquaintance of Mr. Warner, being especially attracted to him because of the success of the de-liciously de-liciously humorous book, 'My Summer In a Garden.' which gained Mr. Warner War-ner national fame, and which was the first of his separate writings. The acquaintance ripened Into intimacy, and the families of the two men were frequently together. "It happened that one evening, when the Twalns had the Warners at a family dinner, something was said about the success of 'Innocents Abroad.' Thereupon both Mrs. Clemens Clem-ens and Mrs. Warner began to twit Mark Twain; they made all manner of good-natured fun of his book, called it an accidental hit, and finally ended up by defying him to write another work like it. "In high humor Mark Twain turned to Mr. Warner. 'You and I will show these ladles that their laughter is unseemly un-seemly and "a cracking of thorns under un-der a pot,'" he cdled. 'We'll get together to-gether and write a story, chapter by chapter every morning, and we will so interweave our work that these wives of ours will not be able to say which has been written by Mark Twain and which by Charles D. Warner; War-ner; for once a week we will gather In my library and read the story to them as it has progressed under our pens.' "What was spoken in Jest was acted upon in the spirit of Jest, Mr. Warner l agreeing to meet Mark Twain every morning for an hour or two so that together they could write a new story somewhat on the lines of 'Innocents Abroad.' After they had been at work on their little Joke for a little while they became thoroughly interested in it, and then, when Mark Twain proposed pro-posed to introduce the character of Colonel Sellers in the story, both he and Mr. Warner grew actually enthusiastic en-thusiastic over it, and their wives confessed con-fessed their deep interest in it as it was read to them as the writing progressed. pro-gressed. "So the Jest was carried on until the story was about half finished, if I remember correctly, when It suddenly sudden-ly occurred to Mark Twain that it might be worth publishing; if it interested in-terested the wives of the authors, it ought to Interest the public. Therefore, There-fore, Twain approached his publishers publish-ers and told them that he and Mr. Warner were Jointly writing a book, and he wondered whether he could make arrangements with them to publish pub-lish It. They jumped at the proposition. proposi-tion. The book was published under the title of 'The Gilded Age,' it sold beyond all expectation for a while, and then, suddenly, the sales stopped. It is the one dead failure among Mark Twaln:s works. Yet a sufficiently large number of copies were sold by subscription to repay the cost of manufacture man-ufacture and return some profit to the Joint authors and the publishers. "Later, however," continued Mr Hubbard, "Mark Twain made a tidy sum out of the dramatic rights of the book. About the time that the book was to be published he suggested to Mr. Warner that he would buy whatever what-ever dramatic rights that Warner might have In the work. The Idea appealed ap-pealed to Mr. Warner, and I have always al-ways understood that Mark Twain paid him $8,000 or thereabouts for his share of the dramatic rights and with that money Mr. Warner was able to make a long winter tour through Egypt. As for Mark Twain, he made thousands In royalties out of the play based on his utterly dead book." (Copyright, 1910. by E. J. Edwards.) |