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May 12, 2006
The Report of the Quotation is an Exaggeration
Yesterday a friend of mine who is constantly looking for jokes and quotations to use in his many presentations and conferences asked me, "Who said, 'The report of my death was greatly exaggerated?'" I followed the example of Mark Twain,
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly and I did. I said, "I didn't know."
This quote and its near cousins like, "Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated," are often attributed to Twain but what he actually wrote can be seen below in his own hand.
This is from a note Twain wrote sometime in May of 1897. It was in response to hearing that his obituary had been published in the New York Journal. Twain was in London at the time. Twain sent the New York Journal a telegram based on the above note and on June 2, 1897, they published the following:
The report of my death was an exaggeration. - Mark Twain
There are those who believe that Twain himself later rewrote the quotation to read, "'The report of my death was greatly exaggerated" but I can not find any solid evidence for this. If you know of any please let me know.
I do know that a few months after the report in the New York Journal Twain wrote to Frank E. Bill this version of the same story.
"It has been reported that I was seriously ill--it was another man; dying--it was another man; dead--the other man again...As far as I can see, nothing remains to be reported, except that I have become a foreigner. When you hear it, don't you believe it. And don't take the trouble to deny it. Merely just raise the American flag on our house in Hartford and let it talk. (November 4, 1897)"
By the way, if you are looking for Twain quotes the best collection I know of is at www.twainquotes.com. The above image of Twain's handwritten note is from that site. The quotation about being able to answer the question, which I used above, is from Chapter 6 of Life on the Mississippi.
Posted by Duane Smith at May 12, 2006 9:41 AM | Read more on Mark Twain |
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