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Monday, January 24, 2011

Ms. Plumfrond's Discovery; or, Some Recently Found OC Letters of Mark Twain's

Hartford, Conn.-It seems that more of Mark Twain's better than 100,000 letters have recently been found in the dusty attic of the house at 472 Delaware Avenue, famously called "Stormfield" after one of Mr. Twain's less prominent, but still arresting characters, and these shed a light on Mr. Twain hitherto unknown. A Ms. Plumfrond, of 245 Fifth Street, Hartford, Conn, the long-time caretaker of that famous Twain house (one of at least four owned and lived in by the Clemenses in their lifetime and family's history; most of which are now surrendered to posterity and curatorial personages of some notoriety in their districts of note), recently stumbled over the more than 2500 letters that were locked in a brownish, wooden, evil-smelling chest. Letters that have been missing, that have been little more than theoretical, for over 115 years! Ms. Plumfrond was apparently down in the basement to clean it, when she happened to find this wondrous treasure-trove of Twain memorabilia. It seems a rat scurrying across the floor frightened Ms. Plumfrond, who leapt onto a nearby chair, and then fell over, onto the previously unaccounted-for trunk. In so doing, she broke the cast-iron lock that had held the incalculable treasures from all sight and knowledge ever since at least 1895. Curious, Ms. Plumfrond picked herself up, and went to examine the trunk. In it, of course, she found the letters, some of which this reporter will now excerpt:

Febuary 5, 1865

Dear Asshole,

Oh, how I must report to you this new invention, recently used by the soldiers of Gen. Grant (that Yankee dog) on the battlefield! It seems that a young soldier, Pvt. Stan Laurelson, stumbled upon the invention while outdoors defecating on a spot off to the side of the battlefield-which one, I'm not sure of. Anyway, a copy of the New York Times lay nearby and in it, a wag in the regiment had scrawled a distasteful mustache, perhaps made out of his own excrement, over the handsome faces of a number of military officers, even, ironically, Gen. Grant himself! Anyway, angered by this slight to his commanding officer-or perhaps himself a hater of Grant, I forget which-he proceeded to use a piece of this paper to clean up his ass, after having defecated! Thus, a new invention: toilet paper, was born! I am so happy to report this to you, Asshole, for now, finally shall you be clean! I have ordered a case of 1,000 rolls to be delivered to Nevada at once! This is a grand, glorious, quaint & clean day! I hope you are as ecstatic as I am.

Forever Yours & A Part of You,

Samuel L. Clemens

This is just a sample of the immense body of letters to not only Mr. Clemens' asshole, but any number of his body parts, written to them in the period ranging from 1859-1895. Twain scholars have speculated that these letters were not necessarily real, but were part of an immense comic work, that at the time probably would've shocked then-Victorian America and thus been suppressed, that he intended to publish at some point, and that he worked on for better than 30 years. Ms. Plumfrond has said that she was shocked, yet delighted to be the one to have found these inestimable letters. Truly, we are seeing a new and a vibrant Twain. Let's hope that these letters will eventually be completely published, perhaps added to one of the appendices of the second volume of the recently-released Autobiography of Mark Twain.

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