Richard Wölfer
1.Has there been a year or timespan from 1870-1880 where Mark Twain appeared more often in Newspaper articles?
When looking through Chronicling America I have found the later years of the 1870s to be more woven through with articles about or at least mentioning Mark Twain in German-speaking newspapers. The years 1877 and 1879 had nine Articles related to him, whereas in 1980 12 articles were written about or with him being mentioned.
In 1877 most of the articles related to Twain were short stories from his life or translated stories of his. But ‘Der Deutsche correspondent’ was also covering the play written by Twain and Bret Harte, ‘Ah Sin’, saying that the audience found it to be good and especially, the speech Twain held at the premiere.
The articles from 1879 are often just mentioning him, one is telling us a story about the excommunication of Orion Twain (Mark Twain’s brother) in order to get more well known, others show us anecdotes from Twain, for example him talking about ‘bad beginnings’, saying that a murder is the first step to corruption. Expressing, ‘Who murdered somebody is also able to steal silverware.’ and other articles that are written in the humorous ways of Twain.
However, most articles related to Twain were published in 1880. One talking about a ship on the Mississippi named after Twain, another talking about the pumpkins Twain saw in relation to a new food-crop. There are many articles that talk about Twain or use him to make the story more interesting or to give it a twist.
Nonetheless, not all the articles are with a small part of Twain, some are completely about him or his stories.
One, for example, is titled ‘Eine Amerikanische Wahl-Candidatur’ where he depicts his candidature for governor in New York. Another article would be ‘Mark Twain über die deutsche Sprache’ where his book ‘A Tramp Abroad’ is introduced and the author shows Twain’s thoughts on German culture and language.
Concluding one could say that most mentions of Twain in Newspapers during that time are about his writing or even his translated short stories. Sometimes however, it gets political; like when he talks about the Sandwich Isles or his run for governor.
An article I might see suited for the blog is:
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045081/1880-10-02/ed-1/seq-7/#date1=1880&index=0&rows=20&searchType=advanced&language=ger&sequence=0&words=Mark+Twain&proxdistance=5&date2=1880&ortext=&proxtext=Mark+Twain&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1