The Autobiography of Mark Twain Chapter Summary & Analysis - Chapter 29 Summary

Chapter 29 Summary

Twain lectured in the main towns of California and Nevada, and then decided to sail around the world from San Francisco. He wrote a weekly letter to a California newspaper for the price of $20 per letter. When he returned, he hoped to make another successful round of lectures.

However, people around the country had not heard of Twain, because the California newspaper had copyrighted his letters, rather than allow others papers to print them. Twain fought that paper to be allowed to use his own letters as the raw material for The Innocents Abroad.

Three years after the book's publication, Twain learned he had accidentally copied a dedication from Oliver Wendell Holmes for his own book's dedication. He wrote Holmes to apologize, but Holmes wasn't angry. He assured Twain that unconscious plagiarism is no crime, and all who speak or write commit it every day. Twain had come to...
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