Very Rare Mark Twain Autograph Quotation Signed From One of His Great Novels

From The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, and the first autograph quotation of Twain’s from one of his novels that we can recall having

The novels that transformed an obscure Western journalist into a national celebrity were The Innocents Abroad in 1869 and Roughing It (sometimes called The Innocents at Home) in 1872. They were immensely successful when first published and they remain today the among the most popular travel books ever written. The latter book is the light-hearted account of Twain’s actual and imagined adventures when he escaped the Civil War and joined his brother, the recently appointed Secretary of the Nevada Territory. His accounts of stagecoach travel, Native Americans, frontier society, the Mormons, the Chinese, and the codes, dress, food, and customs of the West are interspersed with his own experiences as a prospector, miner, journalist, boon companion, and lecturer as he traveled through Nevada, Utah, California, and even to the Hawaiian Islands.

Twain built a home in Redding, Connecticut, which was ready for his use in June 1908. He arrived in town to much panoply on June 18. He initially called the house Innocence at Home, a play on his novel Innocents at Home. However, after a storm on an autumn day a few months later, he renamed the house Stormfield. His daughter Clara was married in the house in October 1909, and his wife Jean died there two months later. On April 21, 1910, Twain himself died in the house.

The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson was a novel published by Twain in 1894. It begins with the act of a young slave girl exchanging her light-skinned child, fearing for its safety, for that of her master’s. From this reversal of identities evolves a suspenseful murder mystery and courtroom drama. Wilson is a Northerner who comes to the small Missouri town of Dawson’s Landing to build a career as a lawyer. Immediately upon his arrival he alienates the townspeople, who don’t understand his wit. They give him the nickname “Pudd’nhead” and refuse to give him their legal work. He scrapes by on odd work and spends most of his time dabbling in scientific hobbies, most notably, fingerprinting; again leading toward the courtroom.

Autograph quotation signed from The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, on Twain’s Innocence at Home, Redding, Connecticut letterhead, October 8, 1908, to Miss Shaw. “Consider well the proportions of things: it is better to be a young june-bug than an old bird of paradise.” The Shaws were well known in Redding, Jacob Shaw having been pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church and Edward Shaw headmaster of the Redding Institute.

This is the first autograph quotation of Twain’s from one of his great novels that we can recall having. Additionally, a search of public sale records going back 40 years turns up only one other example of this signed quotation reaching that market.