NEW YORK, NY.- The Grolier Club will explore the singular wit of American literary legend Mark Twain in the new exhibition A First-Class Fool: Mark Twain and Humor. On view in the Grolier Club’s ground floor gallery from January 15 through April 5, 2025, the exhibition examines the work of humorist Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who crafted the “Mark Twain” persona and built a legacy that continues to influence humorists to the present day.


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Featuring more than 120 works drawn from the private collection of Susan Jaffe Tane with highlights from the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection at The New York Public Library, A First-Class Fool presents first and rare editions of Twain’s published works, including presentation copies, first periodical appearances, and uncommon variants; books from Twain’s library and other personal effects; autograph letters and manuscripts; photographs; and a wide variety of ephemera. Many items in this exhibition are displayed for the first time. The exhibition is curated by Susan Jaffe Tane, Julie Carlsen, and Gabriel Mckee, and an accompanying book, published by the Grolier Club, features 15 scholarly essays.

The exhibition title is drawn from Clemens’s quip at an 1899 dinner in his honor at the Savage Club in London. Toastmaster Sir John MacAlister joked, “Mr. Clemens had tried to be funny but had failed, and his true role in life was statistics … and it would be the easiest task he ever undertook if he would try to count all the real jokes he had ever made.” Clemens replied, “Perhaps I am not a humorist, but I am a first-class fool–a simpleton; for up to this moment I have believed Chairman MacAlister to be a decent person whom I could allow to mix up with my friends and relatives.”

“Twain’s self-identification as a ‘first-class fool’ captures his dual literary role as a simple, folksy author and speaker on the one hand, and an intelligent, cultured, and nuanced literary craftsman on the other,” said Susan Jaffe Tane. “Twain worked carefully to give his public voice the appearance of something naturalistic and unrehearsed. Mark Twain was the performance of Samuel Clemens’s lifetime.”

Leaping Into the Limelight

A First-Class Fool follows the life of the legendary writer from birth as Samuel Clemens in 1835 in Missouri, through his travels, his redefinition of the American novel, his work ethic and personal musings, and the development of Mark Twain as an enduring “brand.”

After working on steamships on the Mississippi, Clemens debuted his pseudonym as a journalist in the early 1860s. In 1865 he published the tall tale that launched his career: “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” On view in the exhibition is a bright red 1903 edition titled The Jumping Frog; In English, then in French, then Clawed Back into a Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unremunerated Toil, which he “retranslated” after being frustrated by the poor quality of unauthorized translations that removed the humor from his story. Following the success of the “Jumping Frog,” Clemens traveled a great deal, writing humorous letters from Europe and the Middle East later published as The Innocents Abroad, his first commercial success and best-selling book throughout his lifetime.

From Popular to Classic

Twain once defined a “classic” novel as “a book which people praise and don’t read.” His popular novels transformed the American literary landscape, as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn turned boyhood into heroism, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court popularized the idea of time travel, and The Gilded Age lent its title to an era. Among the many early and rare editions of Twain’s classics on view in the exhibition is a first edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Hartford: American Publishing Company, 1876), which Twain hoped would have broad appeal.

Serious Business

For Clemens, writing humor was serious business, and objects on view provide insight into his writing process. He famously disliked typewriters, finding them “full of caprices, full of defects—devilish ones,” but he owned several throughout his career. On view is his Williams “grasshopper” typewriter (so named for the long-legged design that allowed an author to view their work as they wrote), which he owned during the last two years of his life.

Twain the Correspondent

A prolific letter writer, from his early days as a riverboat pilot through his last days in Bermuda, Clemens corresponded with friends, family, and admirers. Many handwritten letters on view show his comedic persona, while others provide glimpses into the man behind the name. On view is an 1859 letter to family friend “Aunt Betsey” (Elizabeth W. Smith)—one of the earliest letters by the author in a private collection—in which Clemens complains “I am in a bad way again—disease, Love, in its most malignant form. Hopes are entertained of my recovery, however.”

Twain the Brand

During and after his life, the name and image of Mark Twain have been used to sell cigars, games, domestic goods, and foods. Many popular examples are on view in the exhibition, including The Good Old Game of Innocence Abroad, a board game named for Twain’s travelogue, created by Parker Brothers in 1888. A video installation shows many Twain-influenced productions from the 1960s to the present day, showing Twain’s enduring presence as a pop-culture phenomenon.

“Despite the serious interest that has been paid to Twain’s work by bibliophiles and admirers of his writing, surprisingly this is the first-ever Grolier Club exhibition devoted to him,” said Grolier Club executive director Declan Kiely. “Twain shared several characteristics with Shakespeare’s fools: an innate ability to outwit others, to sniff out and puncture pomposity, vanity, and hypocrisy in all its forms and, above all, to entertain. In doing so, the fool speaks a vital truth to power.”


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