The American Vandal Abroad
There is no definitive text of a MT lecture. For the "American
Vandal" he followed his usual practice of writing it out and committing
it to memory, but in performance it was a living thing. In essence it
remained the same throughout the 1868-1869 tour, but on any given night
he could make it longer or shorter, try out new ideas, and so on. The
version below is Albert Bigelow Paine's, from Mark Twain's
Speeches; other versions can be found in Fred W. Lorch's Trouble Begins
At Eight and Paul Fatout's Mark Twain Speaking. Paine's is
the shortest, probably about half as long as any talk MT delivered, and
the least humorous. Like Mrs. Fairbanks, Paine obviously preferred what
MT called "the serious passages." These moments were important to
contemporary audiences, who wanted to feel "improved" or "instructed" or
"uplifted" in the lyceum, but MT's great popularity as a speaker came
from his humor. To see examples of the kinds of passages audiences
laughed at, but Paine minimized, the text below has links to a couple
additional passages — the first from Fatout's, the second from Lorch's
versions of the lecture.
