Irreverent, charming, eminently quotable, this handbook—an eccentric etiquette guide for the human race—contains sixty-nine aphorisms, anecdotes, whimsical suggestions, maxims, and cautionary tales from Mark Twain’s private and published writings. It dispenses advice and reflections on family life and public manners; opinions on topics such as dress, health, food, and childrearing and safety; and more specialized tips, such as those for dealing with annoying salesmen and burglars. Culled from Twain’s personal letters, autobiographical writings, speeches, novels, and sketches, these pieces are delightfully fresh, witty, startlingly relevant, and bursting with Twain’s characteristic ebullience for life. They also remind us exactly how Mark Twain came to be the most distinctive and well-known American literary voice in the world. These texts, some of them new or out of print for decades, have been selected and meticulously prepared by the editors at the Mark Twain Project.
Table of Content
List of Illustrations
Introduction
1. Everyday Etiquette
A Letter of Apology
About the Effect of Intemperate Language
Be Good, Be Good. A Poem
An Innovative Dinner Party Signal System
About American Manners
Breaking It Gently
Courtesy to Unexpected Visitors
At the Funeral
A Telephonic Conversation
2. Modest Proposals and Judicious Complaints
A Christmas Wish
Proposal Regarding Local Flooding
Complaint about Unreliable Service
Notice about a Stolen Umbrella
An Appeal against Injudicious Swearing
An Unwanted Magazine Subscription
On Telephones and Swearing
About the Proposed Street-Widening
Political Economy
Notice. To the Next Burglar
Suggestion to Persons Entering Heaven
3. The American Table
Memories of Food on an American Farm
American versus European Food
An Inauspicious Meal
A Remarkable Dinner
Food and Scenery
4. Travel Manners
Traveling in Close Quarters
Communicating with the Locals
A Night Excursion in a Hotel Room
5. Health and Diet
Young Sam Clemens and Old-Time Doctoring
The ‘Wake-Up-Jake’
A Healthful Cocktail
A Miracle Cure
Experience of the Mc Williamses with Membranous Croup
Smoking, Diet, and Health at Age Seventy
6. Parenting and the Ethical Child
The Late Benjamin Franklin
On Theft and Conscience
On Training Children
A Sampling of Childish Ethics
Youthful Misdemeanors
Advice to Youth
7. Clothes, Fashion, and Style
A Fashion Item
The Hand of Fashion
That White Suit
Clothes and Deception
A Sumptuous Robe
8. In Case of Emergency
Playing ‘Bear’
An Apparition
The Great Earthquake in San Francisco
Escape of the Tarantulas
Burglary and the Well-Tempered Householder
Under a Policeman’s Eye
About the Texts
Works Cited
Acknowledgments
About the author
Lin Salamo, Victor Fischer, and Michael B. Frank are editors at the Mark Twain Project of The Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley.
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