¹ A Bibliography of Mark Twain (New York, 1935), p. 245. Twain's comments on “A Complaint About Correspondents,” in a letter to his mother and sister, reveal his early use of autobiographical material and something of his literary strategy at that period of his career. Afraid that his mother and his niece, Annie Moffett, would recognize themselves in the sketch, Twain warned them: “If it makes Annie mad I can't help it. If it makes Ma mad I can't help it. I don't mean them any offence at all—I am only using them as types of a class—I am merely hitting other people over their shoulders” (from holograph letter dated 20 Jan. 1866, in the Mark Twain Papers, Univ. of Calif. Lib.; copyright 1958 by the Mark Twain Co.; selection reprinted by permission of the Mark Twain Trustees).

² “A Chronological Bibliography of the Writings of Samuel Clemens to June 8, 1867,” American Lit., xviii (May 1946), 143 and 153. See also The Literary Apprenticeship of Mark Twain (Urbana, 1950), p. 129, by the same author. Actually 7 Twain items appeared in the Weekly Rev. during 1866. The titles and dates of publication are as follows: “The Christmas Fireside,” 3 Feb.; “An Open Letter to the American People,” 17 Feb.; “A New Biography of Washington,” 5 May; “‘Mark Twain,‘ At Sea,” 2 June; “Two Views of Honolulu,” 9 June; “How, For Instance?,” 29 Sept.; “Depart, Ye Accursed,” 15 Dec.

“An Open Letter to the American People” was reprinted with the title “A Complaint About Correspondents” without this headnote: “There is a vacant chair in nearly every household in the Union, from Maine to Louisiana, from Wisconsin to Florida; and the forms that should fill them are scattered far and wide among the mines and ranches of California, Nevada, Oregon, Mexico, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Colorado—everywhere that gold lures, or adventure invites. Between the wanderers and their friends at home a few letters pass during the first months of the formers' absence, and then all correspondence ceases. The writer of the following ‘Open Letter’ desires a word with the nation at large on the subject,”

“Two Views of Honolulu” is the title for reprints of “The Steed ‘Oahu‘” and “Etiquette” from the Sandwich Island Letters; “How, For Instance?” was reprinted with the title “An Inquiry About Insurances”; “Depart, Ye Accursed” was reprinted with the title “Mark Twain on Chambermaids,” or “Concerning Chambermaids.”

³ Twain's brief sketch, “Earthquake Almanac,” which was inspired by the same San Francisco earthquake described in the Weekly Rev., appeared in at least 2 California papers—San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle and the Golden Era —a few weeks after the disaster. Its appearance may explain why the same papers were not interested in reprinting the long Weekly Rev. article on the quake.

⁴ Albert B. Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography (New York, 1912), p. 278.

⁵ Vol. ii, Ch. xvii. See also Twain's recollection of the 1865 earthquake in an interview in 1906 reprinted in Mark Twain's Speeches (New York, 1910), pp. 282–283.

⁶ Statement of policy in issue of 23 December 1865.

⁷ I am indebted to the Council on Research of the Univ. of Colorado and to the Yale Univ. Lib. for the photostat of the Weekly Rev. and to Professor Henry J. Pettit and Mr. Herwig Zauchenberger for editorial assistance.