Mark Twain in German-Language Newspapers and Periodicals

Vienna | Book Announcement

This book announcement was a joke made by Mark Twain during his last week in Vienna and everybody believed it. In an interview with Dr. Johannes Horowitz, correspondent for the New York Times, Mark Twain further expanded on his joke by explaining that his book would not be published until 100 years after his death, because then he would not have to bear the consequences of offending anyone (Scharnhorst, 2006). The Viennese people were very concerned, fearing what the usually very outspoken Mark Twain had to say about them.
The joke resulted in a somewhat negative press reaction (see this - decidedly antisemitic - article in the conservative Austrian newspaper Reichspost, 26 May 1899). A few days later, Mark Twain felt obligated to clarify his joke through his friend the journalist Eduard Pötzl (see Austrian newspaper Neues Wiener Tageblatt, 27 May 1899). The reason for this joke, as Carl Dolmetsch concludes, was to draw attention to his actual works written during his time in Vienna (1992).

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