Posthumous Publishing

A nearly forgotten story by Mark Twain, never before publicly available, has been rescued from oblivion and will be published in magazine and book form later this year.

“It really is a good story and good Twain and good fun,” said Michael Kelly, editor of the Atlantic Monthly magazine. “It really is a fast-moving, nice, strong mystery, with plenty of romance. I’d be happy to have more people writing like that still.”

Prominent in the story, titled “A Murder, a Mystery and a Marriage,” are a father who wants his daughter to marry the son of the wealthiest man in their rural, behind-the-times Missouri town, and a stranger who drops into town.

“There’s a surprise ending, a genuine surprise,” Kelly said. “Funny, and very modern. I don’t want to give it away, but it is something of an absurdist ending.” Twain originally wrote this story for the Atlantic, and the magazine will finally publish the story in its July issue.

The story was written in 1876, just after “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and before “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

Patrick E. Martin, the attorney for the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library in New York, which owns the manuscript for “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” discovered the existence of the story in 1995, while researching legal issues involving a new edition of the novel. He decided to find a way to get it into print.

Those who have read the story say it is interesting reading not only as a mystery tale, but also for what it says about Twain’s development as a writer.

“It really anticipates Huck Finn well,” said Robert Weil, executive editor of W.W. Norton & Co. of New York, which will publish the story in book form in early September. “You can see his ideas taking shape in this story. There is a lot of worthiness. Plus, it’s fun.”

Debra Petke, deputy director of the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Conn., said the newly uncovered story could help draw attention to Twain’s other stories and essays. Petke said those works are an accessible way for readers to become familiar with the dialects Twain used and some of the themes he explored, such as civil rights.

“He had great talent as a short-story writer,” Petke said.

Twain originally wrote the story as what was called a blind novelette, with an outline that was to be used by seven or eight other prominent writers, including Henry James, who would supply different endings. Kelly said he understood that the Atlantic Monthly was to have published all the versions, either in one issue or over a series of issues.

Twain and his editor at the Atlantic, William Dean Howells, tried for years to put the project together, Kelly said, but failed, “I gather because the other writers didn’t want to play ball.” With that, Twain apparently chose not to pursue publication himself, and the story disappeared. The story was not among his papers when he died.

The story has had a rocky past. Weil said he understood that early in the 20th century, a private printing of 16 copies had been produced, then destroyed.

Martin said the story resurfaced in the 1930s, and an effort to publish it in the 1940s touched off a legal battle over publication rights, which belong to the Mark Twain Foundation, which will share royalties with the library.

The Atlantic had to outbid the New Yorker to win publication rights for the story this year, “at a price a good deal more than we would have paid for it originally,” Kelly said. He described the price as “nothing like six figures, but well above the high three figures.”

Weil said the Norton edition of the story will be “richly illustrated,” and in keeping with the period of the story. “It will be like a little gift edition for the fall,” he said.

The Buffalo library, meanwhile, of which Twain was a member when he lived there from 1869 to 1871, will sponsor a competition in keeping with the spirit of Twain’s story. The library on March 1 will post on its Web site, https://www.buffalolib.org, the first two chapters of the story and invite readers around the globe to write their own endings. Some information already is posted on the site. A team of prominent writers will choose a group of top prize winners from among the best selections, Martin said.