WHEN MARK TWAIN COINED HIS NAME.

Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 12 June 1912, Page 3

WHEN MARK TWAIN COINED HIS NAME.

In "Harper's" Mr. Albert Bigelow Paine, the authorised biographer of Mark Twain, tells how the great humorist first adopted the name when writing- for a Nevada newspaper in 10*63. His letters, copied and quoted all along the coast, were unsigned. He realised that to build a reputation it was necessary to fasten it to an individuality —a name/ Just then news came to him that the old pilot he had wounded by his satire, Isaiah Sellers, was dead. At once the penname of Captain Sellers recurred to him. Clemens decided he would give it a new meaning and new association in this far-away land. He went up to Virginia City. "Joe," he said to Goodman. "I want to sign my articles. I want to be identified to a wider audience." "All right, Sam. What name do you want to useJosh?" "No, I want to sign them 'Mark Twain.' It is an old river term, a leaderman's call, signifying two fathoms —twelve feet. It has a richness about it; it was always a pleasant sound for a pilot tot hear on a dark night; It means safe

water."

Mark Twain was first signed to a Carson letter bearing date of February 2, 1863, and from that time, adds his biographer, was attached to all Samuel Clemens's work. The work was neither better nor worse than before, but it had suddenly dcquired identification and special interest. . Members of the Legislature and friends in "Virginia" and Carson immediately began to address him as "Mark." The papers of the coast took % up, and within a period to be measured by weeks he was no longer "Sam" or "Clemens" or "that bright chap on the 'Enterprise,'" but "Mark"— "Mark Twain." No norn de plume was ever so quickly and generally accepted as that.