Details
[CLEMENS, SAMUEL LANGHORNE]. TREVELYAN, G. OTTO. The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay. New York: Harper 1876. 1 vol. only (of 2), 8vo, orignal dark brown cloth, t.e.g., portions of spine lacking, front cover with first 80 pages detached. First American Edition? of this biography of Thomas Babington Macaulay, frontispiece portrait, FROM MARK TWAIN'S LIBRARY WITH EXTENSIVE ANNOTATIONS BY HIM: some 67 separate annotations totalling approximately 304 words (all in pencil) on 44 pages, with extensive pencilled marginal markings and underlinings on these plus another 32 pages.
Gribben, p. 712: "Shortly after this work appeared, in 1876, Clemens prepared a paper, 'Life of Lord Macaulay,' for the Saturday Morning Club in Hartford." Clemens' annotations and markings are for this paper, with most concerned with Macaulay's early life and his intellectual precocity. A few of the more interesting: "[Macaulay] Has become a prig -- ineffable" (p. 64); "This Boccacio business is a perfect enigma. It must have been an expurgated edition" (p. 65, next to a passage in a letter from Macaulay to his mother in which he writes of reading Boccacio); "Send that to [William Dean] Howells with next article" (p. 116, next to the Macaulay sentence: "Every magazie must contain a certain quantity of mere ballast, of no value but as it occupies space"); "Susie's [his daughter] aphorism (aged 4) 'How easy it is to break things.' Her first remark in the morning -- sitting up in bed" (p. 150); "America to-day -- 1876" (pp. 150 and 151, next to two passages regarding the English political situation in the 1830s); "rhetorical rot" (along side of a particularly effusive Macaulay paragraph -- in a number of other places Clemens corrects Macaulay's grammar and diction).
Gribben notes further the appeal of this book to Clemens: "...On Sunday, 25 March 1906, Isabel Lyon [Clemens secretary] recorded: 'It was a delight to hear Mr. Clemens & Mr. Howell talk of Macaulay & Trevelyan's life & letters'...After dinner on 25 August 1907 Isabel Lyon 'found him lying with his beautiful feet uncovered and reading Macaulay's Life & Letters. He dropped it on his breast and chatted for a few minutes.' "See The Twainian, July-October 1951.
Gribben, p. 712: "Shortly after this work appeared, in 1876, Clemens prepared a paper, 'Life of Lord Macaulay,' for the Saturday Morning Club in Hartford." Clemens' annotations and markings are for this paper, with most concerned with Macaulay's early life and his intellectual precocity. A few of the more interesting: "[Macaulay] Has become a prig -- ineffable" (p. 64); "This Boccacio business is a perfect enigma. It must have been an expurgated edition" (p. 65, next to a passage in a letter from Macaulay to his mother in which he writes of reading Boccacio); "Send that to [William Dean] Howells with next article" (p. 116, next to the Macaulay sentence: "Every magazie must contain a certain quantity of mere ballast, of no value but as it occupies space"); "Susie's [his daughter] aphorism (aged 4) 'How easy it is to break things.' Her first remark in the morning -- sitting up in bed" (p. 150); "America to-day -- 1876" (pp. 150 and 151, next to two passages regarding the English political situation in the 1830s); "rhetorical rot" (along side of a particularly effusive Macaulay paragraph -- in a number of other places Clemens corrects Macaulay's grammar and diction).
Gribben notes further the appeal of this book to Clemens: "...On Sunday, 25 March 1906, Isabel Lyon [Clemens secretary] recorded: 'It was a delight to hear Mr. Clemens & Mr. Howell talk of Macaulay & Trevelyan's life & letters'...After dinner on 25 August 1907 Isabel Lyon 'found him lying with his beautiful feet uncovered and reading Macaulay's Life & Letters. He dropped it on his breast and chatted for a few minutes.' "See The Twainian, July-October 1951.