

Mark Twain stories, 150 years old, uncovered by Berkeley scholars - dnetesn
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/04/mark-twain-cache-uncovered-berkeley

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grkvlt
I don't understand why the default documentcload embedding doesn't have an
easy way to link to the actual PDF. The page on the documentcloud site _has_ a
download link, however that can only be found by viewing the Guardian page's
source, determining the documentcloud document-id, and going to
/documents/<document-id>.html (where the document-id consists of a number
folowed by a lowercase hyphenated title) on the documentcloud site itself. For
convenience, here is the PDF itself for the Mark Twain story:

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2072...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2072029/mark-
twain.pdf)

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r00fus
Thanks for this. Not sure if I'd have gone through the trouble.

It's amusing, reading through Twain's prose, how back-handed he is about his
"compliments". I can only imagine how furious his target would have been.

The "modern day" court jester.

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doomicon
Just a note that Mark Twain is smoking a Peterson Pipe in that photo, he used
to smoke corncobs only until introduced to Peterson's. Their pipes are still
made today. [http://www.peterson.ie/](http://www.peterson.ie/)

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ripter
Link to the pages: [http://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-
interactive/2015/may/04/...](http://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-
interactive/2015/may/04/mark-twain-san-francisco-cache)

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mixologic
Why are they typewritten, with corrections? Did somebody find them years after
the typewriter was invented and transfer them from handwritten archives?

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swamp40
When they were written (in 1865), he was only 10 years away from getting his
first typewriter.

 _> > Hartford, March 19, 1875

Gentlemen:

Please do not use my name in any way. Please do not even divulge the fact that
I own a machine. I have entirely stopped using the Type-Writer, for the reason
that I never could write a letter with it to anybody without receiving a
request by return mail that I would not only describe the machine but state
what progress I had made in the use of it, etc., etc. I don't like to write
letters, and so I don't want people to know that I own this curiosity-breeding
little joker.

Yours truly,

Saml. L. Clemens_

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rancur
how would copyright work for these? They were never copyrighted, so they're
not outside the copyright->public works window. could super evil publisher
copyright them? maybe I should just google for copyright.

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zerocrates
It sounds like this is mostly stuff that appeared in newspapers in the 1800s,
so the term of any possible protection they had has long expired.
_Unpublished_ writings would be treated differently, but even they would be
out of copyright if first published today.

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te_platt
Not that long ago. A copyright term of life plus 70 years would mean that
protection ended in 1980. Well, 1980 seems like a long time ago now but I was
there.

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zerocrates
Stuff _published_ in the 1800s wouldn't have ever had the life-plus-70 term,
they'd have the shorter fixed term-plus-renewal scheme from the 1831 and 1909
copyright acts.

For anything that was unpublished, you're right, though if they'd been found
and published before 2002, they'd _still_ be protected until 2047.

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JoeAltmaier
Strange article - as if I'm more interested in the bloggers viewpoint than
say, an actual unknown Twain story! Nothing to see here folks.

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fauxpad
Did they find the story of how Data's head came to be found in that abandoned
basement?

