Both these undertakings were planned and carried out by friends from the
Coast. Charles Henry Webb, who had given up his magazine to come East,
had collected "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other
Sketches," and, after trying in vain to find a publisher for them,
brought them out himself, on the 1st of May, 1867.[7] It seems curious
now that any publisher should have declined the little volume, for the
sketches, especially the frog story, had been successful, and there was
little enough good American humor in print. However, publishing was a
matter not lightly undertaken in those days.
Mark Twain seems to have been rather pleased with the appearance of his
first book. To Bret Harte he wrote:
The book is out and is handsome. It is full of . . . errors....but be a
friend and say nothing about those things. When my hurry is over, I will
send you a copy to pizen the children with.
The little cloth-and-gold volume, so valued by book-collectors to-day,
contained the frog story and twenty-six other sketches, some of which are
still preserved in Mark Twain's collected works. Most of them were not
Mark Twain's best literature, but they were fresh and readable and suited
the taste of that period.
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