BUST OF MARK TWAIN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 71, 23 February 1937, Page 2

BUST OF MARK TWAIN.

UNVEILING IN LONDON. DURING CORONATION. A 51-incli Lust of the American humorist Mark Twain, which lias been presented to England by the Mark Twain Memorial Foundation, will be unveiled in London during the Coronation ceremonies on a site probably somewhere along the Thames Embankment. Mr John Masefield made the suggestion that a bust of Mark Twain ho erected in England during the Twain centennial, when, among other projects, plans were being made to construct a monument to the author in Hannibal. Missouri, his birthplace. Mr Masefield argued that Mark Twain belonged not only to America but to all the English-speaking people and to the world, and his suggestion was endorsed by Mr Bernard Shaw, Mr lludyard Kipling, Sir Phillip Gibbs, Sir Janies M. Barrie, and others. The bust was offered to Great Britain, and at the end of November official notification of acceptance and appreciation came from the Foreign Office to the United States, with the news that tho London City Council was making plans for placing the gift. The bust was designed by Walter A. Russell on a commission from the Mark Twain Memorial Foundation, and it took six months to complete. The Thames Embankment is a particularly fitting place for the Twain memorial, says the Manchester Guardian’s New York correspondent. Mr Masefield pointed out at the time lie made his suggestion that Clemens had spent some of his most happy days on the river and took his penname from the cry of the pilots with whom ho worked. The bust was unveiled at a dinner in New York on November 30, the 101st anniversary of the author’s birth, by Mrs Charles Cartwright, the daughter of William Benjamin and granddaughter of Henry H. Rogers, a close friend of Mark Twain. A. cable was read from Clara Clemens Gabrilowitch, daughter of the author, in which she expressed delight at the acceptance of the gift by Great Britain.