Mark Twain New York. The Langdon family plot is marked by a 12-foot monument (two fathoms, or "mark twain") placed there by his surviving daughter Clara. There is also a smaller headstone. He expressed a preference for cremation (for example, in "Life on the Mississippi"), but he acknowledged that his surviving family would have the last word. Officials in Connecticut and New York estimated the value of Twain's estate at $471,000 ($ today). Twain began his career writing light, humorous verse, but he became a chronicler of the vanities, hypocrisies, and murderous acts of mankind. At mid-career, he combined rich humor, sturdy
1601 (Mark Twain) was originally written in 1876 for "a highly respectable, all-male writing group" as an exercise in the style of Rabelais. It was first published in the "incredibly rare" Cleveland edition of 1880, which is believed to number only four copies. The original edition was anonymous. While visiting West Point in 1881, Twain discovered that a man he met there, Charles Erskine Scott Wood, had access to a private printing press. Twain asked Wood to print off a new edition of fifty copies (now known as the "West Point edition") which came out in 1882. Twain acknowledged authorship in 1906. The