December 12, 2008
Mark Twain Accused of Plagiarism (1889)
Today saw the publication of Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," which he called his "swan-song, my retirement from literature permanently." He was tired of pen-pushing for a living, suffering from rheumatism and his wife from heart strain. It had been more than 20 years since his "Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" had appeared in book form and his faith in the Paige typesetter that he had invested $150,000 into developing was such that he thought he would retire a wealthy man.
But in the meantime, he had to deal with Charles Heber Clark. The journalist had sent him a telegram charging that Twain that taken the plot of "Connecticut Yankee" from "The Fortunate Island," a novella Clark had published as Max Adeler several years before.Twain denied the charge. Yes, he said in an interview with the New York World, he may have seen "The Fortunate Island," but only recently. He said he believed that there was such a thing as unconscious plagiarism, but it didn't apply here.
Except there were quite a few similarities between the two works. While Clark's hero was an American sociology professor who discovers a remnant of King Arthur's England on an island in the North Atlantic, like Twain's hero Hank Morgan, he embarks on modernizing the island by inventing the telephone, the telegraph and the railroad. He, too, is mistaken for a wizard, and is saved at the last minute from being executed.
But there may have been another episode of plagiarism on Twain's mind. To escape death, Morgan recalls "how Columbus, or Cortez, or one of those people, played an eclipse as a saving trump once, on some savages, and I saw my chance. I could play it myself, now; and it wouldn't be any plagiarism, either, because I should get it in nearly a thousand years ahead of those parties." In actuality, Twain probably nicked the trick from H. Rider Haggard, who used it in "King Solomon's Mines," published four years before.
In any event, the accusations of plagiarism faded. Twain had greater problems to deal with. "Connecticut Yankee" sold fewer copies than expected, and the Paige typesetter, never perfected, failed, throwing Twain deeply into debt. His dreams of a wealthy retirement dashed, Twain returned to his desk and pen, a scribbler to the end.
Born: Gustave Flaubert, novelist, author, Rouen, France, 1821; Lillian Smith, novelist, civil rights activist, Jasper, Fla., 1897; Patrick O'Brian, novelist, biographer, translator, Walden Chalfont St. Peter, London, 1914; John Osborne, playwright, film producer, London, 1929.
Died: Robert Browning, poet, Venice, 1889; Ben Travers, playwright, screenwriter, London, 1980; Vance Packard, social critic, author, Vineyard Haven, Mass., 1996; Carl Sagan, scientist, author, Seattle, Wash., 1996; Joseph Heller, novelist, memoirist, East Hampton, N.Y., 1999; Dee Brown, historian, Little Rock, Ark., 2002.
Quote for the Day: "When I was young my vanity was such that when I went to a brothel I always picked the ugliest girl and insisted on making love to her in front of them all without taking my cigar out of my mouth. It wasn't any fun for me: I just did it for the gallery." — Gustave Flaubert, who was born today in 1821
Also from "Writers 365":
- Mark Twain's Massacre (1863)
- Mark Twain born, sort of (1864)
- Rimbaud the Gunrunner (1885)
- Casey strikes out; Thayer doesn't (1888)
- Nellie Bly Says Goodbye (1889)
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