This year marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of Shake-speare's Sonnets -- one of two important Bard-related centennials to come up in 2009.
The other is the 100-year anniversary of the publication of Mark Twain's signature anti-Stratfordian book, Is Shakespeare Dead?, an authorship-related tome that still hasn't been matched in its wit and breezy readability.
Today's New York Times' Times Traveler archive blog reprints a mini-tempest that was stirred up when Twain printed his witty diatribe against "Stratfordolators," as he called the orthodox Shakespeareans. Clips after the jump.
The controversy arose over Twain's excerpting of 22 pages-worth of the classic anti-Stratfordian book The Shakespeare Problem Restated by George G. Greenwood.
Ironically, Twain reprinted a chapter from Greenwood's landmark book and stated as much -- but, crucially, he also neglected to cite Greenwood by name as the excerpt's author.
Below are excerpts from the June 9, 1909 NYT article "Can Mark Twain Be A Literary Pirate?"
[Twain's publisher Harper & Bros. stated,] "The manuscript, exactly as he gave it to us, with the title, 'Is Shakespeare Dead?' was put into book form as quickly as we could do it.
"No one thought of looking particularly to see if Mr. Twain had given credit to Mr. Greenwood. It was noticed that the book itself was credited, and that seemed sufficient. Later on, when the John Lane Company [Greenwood's publisher] called our attention to it, we learned that Mark Twain had failed to speak of Mr. Greenwood. We felt very sorry about it then, but it was too late to recall the edition. We don't put the blame on Mark Twain exactly. Of course if we had noticed the omission we would have called his attention to it. Quite likely it escaped his notice, as it did ours. He didn't mean to be unethical."
...
'"Is Shakespeare Dead?" is being sold here [in the U.S.] unrestricted, but in England the John Lane Company, protected by copyight laws which do not extend to their books in this country, are watching to prevent a copy of Mark Twain's volume from being marketed.
"We don't like to be discourteous about this," said Mr. [Rutger Bleecker] Jewett [manager of John Lane Co.], "but we feel we must protect the authors who put their confidence in us. Mark Twain should have been more careful."
...
An effort was made yesterday to see Mark Twain, but he was not at his home in Redding, Conn., and could not be reached."
[h/t to G.Q. and W.N.; Creative Commons image from Okinawa Soba]
