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1601by Mark Twainscience fiction ebooks INTRODUCTION
"Born irreverent," scrawled Mark Twain on a scratch pad, "--like all
other people I have ever known or heard of--I am hoping to remain so
while there are any reverent irreverences left to make fun of."
- -[Holograph manuscript of Samuel L. Clemens, in the collection of the
F. J. Meine]
Mark Twain was just as irreverent as he dared be, and 1601 reveals his
richest expression of sovereign contempt for overstuffed language,
genteel literature, and conventional idiocies. Later, when a magazine
editor apostrophized, "O that we had a Rabelais!" Mark impishly and
anonymously--submitted 1601; and that same editor, a praiser of Rabelais,
scathingly abused it and the sender. In this episode, as in many others,
Mark Twain, the "bad boy" of American literature, revealed his huge
delight in blasting the shams of contemporary hypocrisy. Too, there was
always the spirit of Tom Sawyer deviltry in Mark's make-up that prompted
him, as he himself boasted, to see how much holy indignation he could
stir up in the world.
WHO WROTE 1601?
The correct and complete title of 1601, as first issued, was: [Date,
1601.] 'Conversation, as it was by the Social Fireside, in the Time of
the Tudors.' For many years after its anonymous first issue in 1880,
its authorship was variously conjectured and widely disputed. In Boston,
William T. Ball, one of the leading theatrical critics during the late
go's, asserted that it was originally written by an English actor (name
not divulged) who gave it to him. Ball's original, it was said, looked
like a newspaper strip in the way it was printed, and may indeed have
been a proof pulled in some newspaper office. In St. Louis, William
Marion Reedy, editor of the St. Louis Mirror, had seen this famous tour
de force circulated in the early 80's in galley-proof form; he first
learned from Eugene Field that it was from the pen of Mark Twain.
"Many people," said Reedy, "thought the thing was done by Field and
attributed, as a joke, to Mark Twain. Field had a perfect genius for
that sort of thing, as many extant specimens attest, and for that sort of
practical joke; but to my thinking the humor of the piece is too mellow
- -not hard and bright and bitter--to be Eugene Field's." Reedy's opinion
hits off the fundamental difference between these two great humorists;
one half suspects that Reedy was thinking of Field's French Crisis.
But Twain first claimed his bantling from the fog of anonymity in 1906,
in a letter addressed to Mr. Charles Orr, librarian of Case Library,
Cleveland. Said Clemens , in the course of his letter, dated July 30,
1906, from Dublin, New Hampshire:
"The title of the piece is 1601. The piece is a supposititious
conversation which takes place in Queen Elizabeth's closet in that year,
between the Queen, Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Sir Walter Raleigh, the Duchess
of Bilgewater, and one or two others, and is not, as John Hay mistakenly
supposes, a serious effort to bring back our literature and philosophy to
the sober and chaste Elizabeth's time; if there is a decent word findable
in it, it is because I overlooked it. I hasten to assure you that it is
not printed in my published writings."science fiction ebook [Date, 1601.]
CONVERSATION, AS IT WAS BY THE SOCIAL FIRESIDE, IN THE TIME OF THE
TUDORS.
[Mem.--The following is supposed to be an extract from the diary of the
Pepys of that day, the same being Queen Elizabeth's cup-bearer. He is
supposed to be of ancient and noble lineage; that he despises these
literary canaille; that his soul consumes with wrath, to see the queen
stooping to talk with such; and that the old man feels that his nobility
is defiled by contact with Shakespeare, etc., and yet he has got to stay
there till her Majesty chooses to dismiss him.]
YESTERNIGHT
toke her maiste ye queene a fantasie such as she sometimes hath, and had
to her closet certain that doe write playes, bokes, and such like, these
being my lord Bacon, his worship Sir Walter Ralegh, Mr. Ben Jonson, and
ye child Francis Beaumonte, which being but sixteen, hath yet turned his
hand to ye doing of ye Lattin masters into our Englishe tong, with grete
discretion and much applaus. Also came with these ye famous Shaxpur. A
righte straunge mixing truly of mighty blode with mean, ye more in
especial since ye queenes grace was present, as likewise these following,
to wit: Ye Duchess of Bilgewater, twenty-two yeres of age; ye Countesse
of Granby, twenty-six; her doter, ye Lady Helen, fifteen; as also these
two maides of honor, to-wit, ye Lady Margery Boothy, sixty-five, and ye
Lady Alice Dilberry, turned seventy, she being two yeres ye queenes
graces elder.
I being her maites cup-bearer, had no choice but to remaine and beholde
rank forgot, and ye high holde converse wh ye low as uppon equal termes,
a grete scandal did ye world heare thereof.
In ye heat of ye talk it befel yt one did breake wind, yielding an
exceding mightie and distresfull stink, whereat all did laugh full sore,
and then--
Ye Queene.--Verily in mine eight and sixty yeres have I not heard the
fellow to this fart. Meseemeth, by ye grete sound and clamour of it, it
was male; yet ye belly it did lurk behinde shoulde now fall lean and flat
against ye spine of him yt hath bene delivered of so stately and so waste
a bulk, where as ye guts of them yt doe quiff-splitters bear, stand
comely still and rounde. Prithee let ye author confess ye offspring.
Will my Lady Alice testify?
Lady Alice.--Good your grace, an' I had room for such a thundergust
within mine ancient bowels, 'tis not in reason I coulde discharge ye same
and live to thank God for yt He did choose handmaid so humble whereby to
shew his power. Nay, 'tis not I yt have broughte forth this rich
o'ermastering fog, this fragrant gloom, so pray you seeke ye further.
Ye Queene.--Mayhap ye Lady Margery hath done ye companie this favor?
Lady Margery.--So please you madam, my limbs are feeble wh ye weighte and
drouth of five and sixty winters, and it behoveth yt I be tender unto
them. In ye good providence of God, an' I had contained this wonder,
forsoothe wolde I have gi'en 'ye whole evening of my sinking life to ye
dribbling of it forth, with trembling and uneasy soul, not launched it
sudden in its matchless might, taking mine own life with violence,
rending my weak frame like rotten rags. It was not I, your maisty.
Ye Queene.--O' God's name, who hath favored us? Hath it come to pass yt
a fart shall fart itself? Not such a one as this, I trow. Young Master
Beaumont--but no; 'twould have wafted him to heaven like down of goose's
boddy. 'Twas not ye little Lady Helen--nay, ne'er blush, my child;
thoul't tickle thy tender maidenhedde with many a mousie-squeak before
thou learnest to blow a harricane like this. Wasn't you, my learned and
ingenious Jonson? science fiction e-books fiction Ebooks Science Fiction ORBuy "The Mark Twain Collection" and receive all 45 of the ebooks for only $9.95 Ebook Titles: - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
- TOM SAWYER ABROAD
- TOM SAWYER, DETECTIVE
- THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
- 1601
- A Burlesque Autobiography
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
- A Dog's Tale
- A Horse's Tale
- A TRAMP ABROAD
- Alonzo Fitz and Other Stories
- Carnival of Crime in CT
- Christian Science
- Complete Letters of Mark Twain
- Curious Republic of Gondour
- Double Barrelled Detective
- Essays on Paul Bourget
- Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven
- Extracts From Adam's Diary
- FENIMORE COOPER'S LITERARY OFFENCES
- FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR
- Goldsmiths Friend Abroad Again
- How Tell a Story and Others
- In Defence of Harriet Shelley
- Innocents Abroad
- IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD?
- LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
- MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY
- Mark Twain's Speeches
- On the Decay of the Art of Lying
- Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc v1
- Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc v2
- Rambling Idle Excursion
- Roughing It
- Sketches New and Old
- THE $30,000 BEQUEST and Other Stories
- The American Claimant
- The Gilded Age
- The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg
- The Mysterious Stranger
- The Prince and the Pauper
- The Stolen White Elephant
- The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson
- Those Extraordinary Twins
- WHAT IS MAN? AND OTHER ESSAYS OF MARK TWAIN
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