The circumstances of how 1601 came to be written have since been
officially revealed by Albert Bigelow Paine in 'Mark Twain, A
Bibliography' (1912), and in the publication of Mark Twain's Notebook
(1935).
1601 was written during the summer of 1876 when the Clemens family had
retreated to Quarry Farm in Elmira County, New York. Here Mrs. Clemens
enjoyed relief from social obligations, the children romped over the
countryside, and Mark retired to his octagonal study, which, perched
high on the hill, looked out upon the valley below. It was in the famous
summer of 1876, too, that Mark was putting the finishing touches to Tom
Sawyer. Before the close of the same year he had already begun work
on 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn', published in 1885. It is
interesting to note the use of the title, the “Duke of Bilgewater,”
in Huck Finn when the “Duchess of Bilgewater” had already made her
appearance in 1601. Sandwiched between his two great masterpieces,
Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, the writing of 1601 was indeed a strange
interlude.
During this prolific period Mark wrote many minor items, most of them
rejected by Howells, and read extensively in one of his favorite books,
Pepys' Diary. Like many another writer Mark was captivated by Pepys'
style and spirit, and “he determined,” says Albert Bigelow Paine in his
'Mark Twain, A Biography', “to try his hand on an imaginary record of
conversation and court manners of a bygone day, written in the phrase of
the period. The result was 'Fireside Conversation in the Time of
Queen Elizabeth', or as he later called it, '1601'. The 'conversation'
recorded by a supposed Pepys of that period, was written with all the
outspoken coarseness and nakedness of that rank day, when fireside
sociabilities were limited only to the loosened fancy, vocabulary, and
physical performance, and not by any bounds of convention.”
“It was written as a letter,” continues Paine, “to that robust divine,
Rev. Joseph Twichell, who, unlike Howells, had no scruples about Mark's
'Elizabethan breadth of parlance.'”
The Rev. Joseph Twichell, Mark's most intimate friend for over forty
years, was pastor of the Asylum Hill Congregational Church of Hartford,
which Mark facetiously called the “Church of the Holy Speculators,”
because of its wealthy parishioners. Here Mark had first met “Joe” at a
social, and their meeting ripened into a glorious, life long friendship.
Twichell was a man of about Mark's own age, a profound scholar, a devout
Christian, “yet a man with an exuberant sense of humor, and a profound
understanding of the frailties of mankind.” The Rev. Mr. Twichell
performed the marriage ceremony for Mark Twain and solemnized the births
of his children; “Joe,” his friend, counseled him on literary as well
as personal matters for the remainder of Mark's life. It is important
to catch this brief glimpse of the man for whom this masterpiece was
written, for without it one can not fully understand the spirit in which
1601 was written, or the keen enjoyment which Mark and “Joe” derived
from it.
“SAVE ME ONE.”
The story of the first issue of 1601 is one of finesse, state diplomacy,
and surreptitious printing.
The Rev. “Joe” Twichell, for whose delectation the piece had been
written, apparently had pocketed the document for four long years. Then,
in 1880, it came into the hands of John Hay, later Secretary of State,
presumably sent to him by Mark Twain. Hay pronounced the sketch
a masterpiece, and wrote immediately to his old Cleveland friend,
Alexander Gunn, prince of connoisseurs in art and literature. The
following correspondence reveals the fine diplomacy which made the name
of John Hay known throughout the world.