The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts pdf Mark Twain Free Download

The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (Literature)

by Mark Twain

Of the projected fifteen volumes of this edition of Mark Twain's previously unpublished works the following have been issued to date:

MARK TWAIN'S LETTERS TO His PUBLISHERS, 1867-1894

edited by Hamlin Hill

MARK TWAIN'S SATIRES & BURLESQUES

edited by Franklin R. Rogers

MARK TwAnv's WHICH WAS THE DREAM?

edited by John S. Tuckey

MARK TWAIN S HANNIBAL, HUCK & Tom

edited by Walter Blair

MARK TWAIN 's MYSTERIOUS STRANGER MANUSCRIPTS

edited by William M. Gibson

MARK TWAIN's CORRESPONDENCE WITH HENRY HUTTLESTON ROGERS

edited by Lewis Leary

Editorial Board

WALTER BLAIR

DONALD CONEY

HENRY NASH SMITH

Series Editor of The Mark Twain Papers

FREDERICK ANDERSON

by Mark Twain

Edited with an Introduction by

William M. Gibson

AT ONE TIME, the editors of the Iowa-California Edition of the writings of Mark Twain and the editors of The Mark Twain Papers, along with their respective publishers, intended to publish Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts jointly, since the volume includes both published and unpublished writings. However, the published version is partly fraudulent, and the unpublished versions bulk larger than what had appeared in print. Moreover, the University of California Press has become the publisher for the Iowa edition (as it then was) as well as The Papers. Thus the book appears as a part of The Mark Twain Papers rather than under a double imprint.

This bit of editorial and publishing history will serve to explain my good fortune in having had two sets of editors to advise me and inspect my copy. My debt to the editorial board of The Papersto Walter Blair and Henry Nash Smith-and to the Series Editor, Frederick Anderson, is large, and I am grateful to these scholars. I also owe particular thanks to John C. Gerber and Paul Baender, editors of the Iowa-California edition, who gave me professional counsel for several years prior to the decision to place this volume in The Papers, and to John S. Tuckey, who laid the foundation for this edition in his monograph, Mark Twain and Little Satan, The Writing of The Mysterious Stranger.

It is a pleasure to record a debt of a somewhat different kind, equally real, to three former students: John A. Costello, Priscilla H. Costello, and Miriam Kotzin. Mr. and Mrs. Costello, who typed the "No. 44" narrative from photocopy of the manuscript, deciphered and bracketed into their typescript many of Mark Twain's cancellations out of their own interest in the work. Miss Kotzin did me the service of retyping and checking against photocopy my own heavily corrected typescript of Twain's working notes for the three manuscripts. I owe these young scholars thanks. I am fortunate to have had the professional help of Bernard L. Stein for more than two years and of Victor Fischer for several months in establishing cancellations and completing the textual apparatus. And I appreciate assistance in proofreading from Mariam Kagan, Bruce T. Hamilton, Theodore Guberman, and Robert Hirst.

Barbara C. Gibson, my wife, at nearly every stage in the preparation of this edition invested hours and days in verifying copy against typescript and photocopy-only she knows how many-and in helping me "break" words or phrases heavily overscored.

Finally, I am grateful to the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation for the fellowship during which I began the editorial work; and to the Office of Education, Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and the National Endowment for the Humanities for providing me with indispensable travel and research assistance. The Office of Education has been the chief supporter of the Iowa edition; the National Endowment, the chief support of The Mark Twain Papers through the Center for Editions of American Authors, Modern Language Association of America.

WILLIAM M. GIBSON

March 1968