Los Angeles herald., 1891-02-01
MARK TwAIN's LUCK.
Ais ''neld and Bad" Project How ''Ths
Gildeti Age" Was written.

His ''Beld ana Bad Project How 'sThs
Gilded Age" Was Written.
Especial Corrcspondence.l
NEW YoKK, Dec 8.-Mark Twain was
quoted in recent interview as saying that
he proposed to be a bold. bad man for a
year and to let literature alone. This looks
as though he had some new literary
achievement in view, and it would not be
at all surprising If his boldness and bed
ness consisted in withdrawing himself for
q time from the world and cultivating
again his muse.
Mark Twain has been one of the luckiest,
as he is the most successful, financially, of
all the American writers of the present
generation. He had hard luck at the be-
ginning, but he has never experienced any
since. None of his books has failed to
make money. and some of them have made
vast sums for him. The nearest that he
ever came to failure was with the book
called ''The Gilded Age" It is the only
one of his writings for which there is no
sale now. Yet his good luck did not de-
sert him in the case Of this venture, for out
of it came profits which at one time had
reached as high as $4,000, and which must,
all in all, have brought him pretty close to
100000 profit.
The story of how this book came to be
written, and what happened after it was
published, is comedy of itself. Mark
Twain and Charles Dudley Warner have
| always been neighbors in Hartford, Conn,
and at one time they were intimates, and
are friendly now. 1t was reported in Hart
| ford that in spirit of banter begun by
the respective wives of these two litter
ateurs they agreed to write novel in COL
laboration, just to show the wives that
they were capable Of something requiring
greater talent than sense of humor. They
got together in spirit of fun, talked over
the plot half jokingly, and then went to
work.
The daily stent of each was laid out, and
the humor of the thing, the fun of the
story and the domestic joke which they
were playing so inspired them that they
found they had got the book pretty nearly
finished in very few weeks. Then the
business instinct came in, and it seemed as
though a book written by Mark Twain
and Charles Dudley Warner would be
sure to command sale. Negotiations
were carried on with the publishers, the
book was put upon the market, and its
sale for few weeks was very great. The
immortal Col. Sellers gave the work an
| advertisement That was creation, and
| it was the only feature of the book which
could be thus described.
| Not long after the book was put upon
the market gentleman appeared in Hart
ford and introduced himself as Col. Eschol
Sellers. He had reason to believe, he said,
that he was the original from whom the
hero who went in for sthe old flag and an
appropriation" was taken. He did not
seem to find that humorous delight in the
sketch which everybody else discovered
there. and he came to Hartford to see what
the authors were going to do about it.
Precisely what they did is not known in
all its details. 1t was reported at the time
that they had agreed to suppress the first
edition and change the name in a new edi-
tion from Eschol to Beriah Sellers This
was certainly done. The old plates were
destroyed and new edition issued as soon
as possible in which Col Sellers appeared
with new Christian name. That is why
people have sometimes been bothered to
understand how it happened that in some
of the books the name appeared as Col.
Eschol Sellers, while in others it was Col
Beriah Sellers.
A few copies of the first edition are ex-
tant, and they are regarded as choice treas
ures by bibliophiles. This seemed to be a
piece of hard luck, and whether it was due
to this event or not the sale of the book all
of a sudden stopped. 1t had sold hand
somely on the reputation of Mark Twain
and Mr.. Warner for few weeks, and
brought them profit, as was reported, of
about s., 900 apiece. Mark Twain paid Mr..
Warner small sum for his rights in any
dramatic version, and Mr.. Warner was
very glad to accept the sum offered, for he
had no idea his dramatic rights were worth
anything.
But Mark Twain has the dramatic in
stinct, and he saw that though the novel
was, as he expressed it, pretty tough"
there were dramatic possibilities in con-
nection with Col. Sellers. A veteran actor
had also discovered this. Mr.. John T.
Raymond saw that he could not only act
Col Sellers, but that he was in his own
disposition a good deal of a Col. Sellers
himself. He therefore produced dramati-
zation which made one of the great dra-
matte hits of the American stage and Gre
ated an immortal character. Then Mr..
Raymond was reminded by Mark Twain
that he had certain rights in Col Null
berry Sellers, the name being changed to
Mulberry for stage purposes. For GER
tain royalty these rights were negotiated,
and that is where Mark Twain's luck again
stood him in good stead.
Mr.. Raymond told the writer that he had
paid Mark Twain in royalties in some six
yearsover 60,00O Raymond played it until
almost everybody in the United States had
seen it two or three times, but since his
death it has been practically shelved be-
cause no actor has appeared who can emu
late Raymond's Characterization of the
part.
There is rumor floating about that
Mark Twain's idea of being "bold and
bad" is to find expression in character
which he is creating, and which year or
SO hence will be presented to the American
public as typical bold, bad American
T.. j. EDWARDS.
A. Mystery Explained.
The papers contain frequent notices of rich,
pretty and educated girls eloping with negroes,