Mark Twain

Historical Romances

The Prince and the Pauper • A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court • Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc

The texts of The Prince and the Pauper, edited by Victor Fischer and Lin Salamo, with the assistance of Mary Jane Jones, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, edited by Bernard L. Stein, presented in this volume are those of The Iowa Center for Textual Studies edition of The Works of Mark Twain, published by the University of California Press (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1979). These texts were prepared according to the standards established by--and have received the official approval of--The Center for Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association. The text presented here of Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc is that of the first American edition, published by Harper & Brothers (New York, 1896).

The textual problems that confronted the editors of The Prince and the Pauper and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court were similar. In both cases Mark Twain's complete holograph manuscript is extant: the manuscript of The Prince and the Pauper is in the Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California, and the manuscript of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is in the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of The New York Public Library. These manuscripts served as the basic texts for the Iowa-California editions. Intervening documents between manuscript and first edition, such as printer's copy and proofs, have not been found. Prospectuses, set from incompletely revised proofs for the purpose of soliciting prepublication subscription sales, are extant. In both cases, the English editions, published by Chatto & Windus slightly before or simultaneously with the American editions, were set from the American proof sheets in varying stages of revision. The task of the editors was to determine, after collation of the documents, which of the many differences between the manuscripts and the published editions were caused by others in the process of transmission from manuscript to printer's copy to type and then to plates, and which were deliberate revisions made by Mark Twain when he read proof.

The editor of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court had two other published documents to collate, in addition to those mentioned earlier. First, excerpts from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court published in the November 1889 Century Magazine contained many variations from the manuscript, some which were clearly made by Twain or others solely for the purpose of magazine publication, but some which seem to be changes Twain would have inserted into the book if he had had more time. And second, Twain used the Globe edition of Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur, edited by Sir Edward Strachey, at times instructing his typist to copy long passages directly from it; in these cases that text is used for copy by the editor. Transcriptions from Morte Darthur made, and sometimes revised, by Twain himself remain as he wrote them in the manuscript. For the text of the Iowa-California editions presented in this volume, obvious errors in the manuscript were corrected, and the changes determined to be made by Twain himself were inserted. Mark Twain began working on The Prince and the Pauper late in 1877 and finished eleven chapters before putting it aside in February 1878. He resumed work on it early in 1880 and by December 1880 had finished a draft, which he gave to friends to read. After receiving their comments and suggestions, he made further revisions. On February 9, 1881, he signed a contract with James R. Osgood and Company for publication of the book, in which it was stipulated that Osgood would supply illustrations, pay all advertising costs, and manufacture the book by November 15, 1881, subject to Twain's approval; Twain was to turn in the completed manuscript no later than April 1, 1881, pay for all production costs, own the plates and stock, retain the copyright, and decide what the retail price and discounts to agents would be. Osgood was to receive a 7 1/2 percent royalty for his services. Arrangements were made with Chatto & Windus for prior publication in England. The manuscript was completed in March 1881 and Osgood had a transcription of it made for printer's copy. Twain did not go over this copy. He read proofs in late summer and early fall and complained that the typesetters had not followed his punctuation, which he had insisted they do; despite his objections, nine of the chapters still retained the typesetters' punctuation (Mark Twain's punctuation has been restored by the Iowa-California editors). Twain's friends William Dean Howells and Edward House read proof pages for the book and suggested a number of last-minute revisions, which Twain agreed to make. These changes had to be made in the plates, and not all of them were done in time to appear in the English edition, which was set from the American proofs. Twain went to Montreal to protect his Canadian copyright late in November and authorized a 250-volume edition to be published by Dawson Brothers of Montreal early in December. The English edition was published December 1, 1881, and the American edition was published December 12, 1881, bearing an 1882 date on its title page. Mark Twain made no further revisions to the text.

Mark Twain worked on A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court intermittently from early 1886 to April 1889, when a typescript was made (the first complete typescript produced for any Twain work). Frederick Hall, then acting publisher for Twain's firm, Charles L. Webster and Company, gave the typescript to Edmund Clarence Stedman to read, and Stedman offered several suggestions for revisions. Twain revised the typescript in May and June 1889. Because of difficulties with the intricate illustrations and the urgency of getting proofs to England in time for Chatto & Windus to obtain copyright, Hall devised a complicated production process in which illustration, typesetting, plating, and printing were begun before the final book was proofread, and Twain was unable to read revised page proofs. Meanwhile, Twain prepared the excerpts mentioned above for publication in the November 1889 Century Magazine. Howells read page proofs for the book and offered suggestions for revisions, many of which Twain accepted; these late revisions had to be made in the plates, and were therefore too late to be made in the English edition, which had been set from earlier stages of the proofs. The English edition is also lacking the second paragraph of the Preface, which Twain had removed because he did not want to offend English taste. The Canadian edition, published by G. M. Rose and Sons in Toronto, was set from the American plates. The book was published simultaneously in Canada, England, and the United States early in December 1889. No further revisions were made by Twain.

Mark Twain began writing Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc while staying in Florence, Italy, in late 1892 and continued work until he finished the section describing the siege of Orleans. He arranged to have the manuscript typed, and then he put it aside. During a business trip to New York in July and August 1894, he negotiated an arrangement with J. Henry Harper to serialize the book pseudonymously in Harper's Magazine, agreeing to accept in return less than his usual payment for serial publication. Twain had originally intended to write Joan's life up through her great battles and only to summarize her trial and martyrdom briefly at the end, but he was convinced by Henry Mills Alden, the Harper editor, that the trial and martyrdom were essential to the story. After returning to France in late August 1894 Twain continued work on the book, and by December 1894 realized that the third part was much longer than he had expected and that he would have to cut it drastically for serial publication (in addition to occasional paragraphs, 12 chapters in the third section were cut). Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc was completed on February 8, 1895, and Twain brought the typescript with him on his next business trip to New York on February 23, 1895. He returned briefly to Paris in April to help prepare for his family's return to America in May. Typesetting for the magazine had been started earlier; in a letter written to Henry Huttleston Rogers on April 29, 1895, Twain reported that he was reading proof for the September installment. Serial publication of Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc began in the April 1895 Harper's Magazine with "the Sieur Louis de Conte" given as the author and "Jean Franýois Alden" credited as the translator. Twain continued to read proof in Elmira, N.Y., for both the book and abridged magazine versions. Arrangements were made to have the book published immediately after the last serial installment in April 1896. In August 1895, Twain left the United States with his family to begin his world lecture tour and therefore was unable to read book page proofs. The book was published by Harper & Brothers in New York on May 1, 1896, with Mark Twain's name prominently displayed on the book's cover and spine but not on the title page. The English edition, set from American proofs, was published simultaneously with the American edition by Chatto & Windus; it credited Mark Twain as "editor" on the title page. Except for adding a dedication to his wife in a later printing, Twain made no further revisions in the book. The text of the first American edition is printed here.

This volume presents the texts of the printings chosen for inclusion here, but it does not attempt to reproduce features of their typographic design, such as the display capitalization of chapter openings. Page reference numbers in the originals have been changed to conform to the pages of the present volume. Otherwise, the texts are reproduced without change, except for the correction of typographical errors. Spelling, punctuation, and capitalization often are expressive features and they are not altered, even when inconsistent or irregular.

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