HUMOR AT WEST POINT

The first printing of 1601 in actual book form was "Donne at ye Academie
Press," in 1882, West Point, New York, under the supervision of Lieut. C.
E. S. Wood, then adjutant of the U. S. Military Academy.

In 1882 Mark Twain and Joe Twichell visited their friend Lieut. Wood at
West Point, where they learned that Wood, as Adjutant, had under his
control a small printing establishment. On Mark's return to Hartford,
Wood received a letter asking if he would do Mark a great favor by
printing something he had written, which he did not care to entrust to
the ordinary printer. Wood replied that he would be glad to oblige.
On April 3, 1882, Mark sent the manuscript:

"I enclose the original of 1603 [sic] as you suggest. I am afraid there
are errors in it, also, heedlessness in antiquated spelling--e's stuck on
often at end of words where they are not strickly necessary, etc.....
I would go through the manuscript but I am too much driven just now, and
it is not important anyway. I wish you would do me the kindness to make
any and all corrections that suggest themselves to you.

"Sincerely yours,
"S. L. Clemens."


Charles Erskine Scott Wood recalled in a foreword, which he wrote for the
limited edition of 1601 issued by the Grabhorn Press, how he felt when he
first saw the original manuscript. "When I read it," writes Wood,
"I felt that the character of it would be carried a little better by a