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Pudd'nhead Wilson : autograph manuscript : Florence, 1893 Mar.

BIB_ID
182431
Accession number
MA 881-882
Creator
Clemens, Samuel Langhorne, 1835-1910.
Display Date
1893 Mar.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1909.
Description
2 boxes (637 p.), unbound ; ca. 20.5 cm
Notes
21 chapters (numbered 33 in the manuscript, chapter 33 being used in the published version instead of the original conclusion).
An autograph note at the conclusion of the text indicates that the manuscript was completed in Florence, Italy, in March of 1893.
Formerly bound with an autograph letter (MA 881.1) signed S.L. Clemens to J. Pierpont Morgan concerning the purchase of the manuscript, dated Stormfield, Redding, Conn. Sept. 15, 1909. See individual record for MA 881.1 for full description of the letter.
High reserve.
Manuscript is heavily revised, containing many corrections and emendations, and also with directions to the compositor. Includes unpublished portions, including an alternate ending.
The manuscript incorporates passages later included in the published work Those Extraordinary Twins.
Written on the rectos and some versos of 637 pages. Some pages are typewritten.
Note on pagination: The manuscript of Pudd'head Wilson was once bound in two volumes, accessioned as MA 881 and MA 882. The volumes were disbound in the 2000s and the manuscript is now in loose sheets housed in two drop-spine boxes. Twain's own continuous numbering (1-635, with some variations and unnumbered pages) appears at the top of most of the sheets.The Morgan has added folio numbers in pencil at the foot of the verso of each sheet (MA 881, f. 1-293, corresponding to Twain's pages 1-291; MA 882, f. 1-345, corresponding to Twain's pages 292-635).
Provenance
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan from Mr. Clemens in 1909.
Housed in
Blue cloth drop-spine boxes (25.3 and 30 cm)