Books & Manuscripts, including Americana

One page, 8vo (191 x 127 mm), original transmittal envelope addressed in Twain's hand, toning. Framed and matted, overall, 16 x 9 1/2 in. Unexamined out frame.

In full: "Yes indeed! I am 'Jesuit enough to agree that the end justified the hoax.' So far as I know, I haven't often been the means of reforming anybody, therefore I am very grateful to you for securing me that pleasant distinction for once."

On 31 March 1873, Samuel Langhorne Clemens stepped onto a stage before the Monday Evening Club of Hartford, Connecticut and delivered what would become one of his most famous lectures, entitled "License of the Press," in which Clemens critiqued the oft-misused power of the American press and confessed to his own role while working as a reporter, remarking, "Why I have published vicious libels upon people myself — and ought to have been hanged before my time for it, too..." He was particularly known for his hoaxes, written while working for the Territorial Enterprise of Virginia City, Nevada, of which "The Petrified Man" remains his most infamous.

Printed in 1862, "The Petrified Man" details the discovery of a man made of stone who had lived "close to about a century ago." According to Clemens, the man was found with a wooden leg and his thumb pressed to his nose with his fingers splayed out. A local judge, J.T. Sewall, was taken to view the body, and he, along with its discoverers, finds himself befuddled by what this gesture could possibly mean.

With "petrified men" being one of the 19th century's most oft-produced hoaxes, in writing his own telling, Twain was mocking a gullible public who felt too quick to believe nonsense, as well as the local bureaucrats who were all too happy to play along for the sake of getting votes. The story proved immensely popular and was reprinted across the country, helping establish Clemens's reputation as a humorist.