Word: websterisms
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...world a new, important and frequently unflattering load of Twainiana. The Atlantic Monthly published the first of four articles based on letters (they go back to 1853 when Twain was 18) which Samuel Langhorne Clemens wrote to members of his family and to his onetime publishing partner, Charles L. Webster.* They often show Twain at his worst-techy, cussed, filled with distrust of his fellows, a domineering egotist. They also often show him in full comical steam. In sum, they make the difficult man a more understandable genius...
Family Troubles. Editor and author of the Atlantic's series is Charles L. Webster's son, Mark Twain's grandnephew, corncob-pipe-smoking Samuel (for Clemens) Charles (for his father) Webster of Manhattan. His helper was his tiny, chipper, 91-year-old mother, Sam Clemens' niece and his favorite youngster during his Mississippi pilot days. Mrs. Webster saved the 500-odd letters through the years -literally in an attic trunk...
Killing Susy. Editor Webster's picture of "Uncle Sam" begins with such early lore as the fun Twain had in letters to his mother. She wrote in a maternal hurry and let her mistakes go uncorrected. Thus when she meant to write, "Kiss Susy [Twain's daughter] for me," it came out "Kill Susy for me." To which Twain replied: "I said to Livy [his wife], 'It is a hard thing to ask of loving parents, but Ma is getting old and her slightest whim must be our law'; so I called in Downey, and Livy...
...Editor Webster insists that Mark Twain was grossly unfair to his father's memory. Twain attributed to the senior Webster the failure of Charles L. Webster & Co. (the once enormously successful house that published Twain and others...
There were only 27 states in the U.S. when Oliver Wendell Holmes was born (1841). William Henry (Tippecanoe) Harrison was President. Daniel Webster was Secretary of State. The best people believed in a twelve-hour day for work men ("The morals of the operatives," said one observer, "will necessarily suffer if longer absent from the wholesome discipline of factory life...