TWAIN

Clemens is referring to his article in the October 1899 issue of Cosmopolitan, "Christian Science and the Book of Mrs. Eddy," and he may have been writing to Blythe in response to a request for reprint permissions for Clemens' then controversial article. "For all of the strange, and frantic, and incomprehensible, and uninterpretable books which the imagination of man has created, surely this one is the prize sample" - “Christian Science and the Book of Mrs. Eddy.” He is referring to John Brisben WALKER (1847-1931) who was a highly influential American publisher who bought Cosmopolitan in 1889. He transformed it from a niche literary journal into a massively popular publication known for progressive social reform, serialising famous authors like H.G. Wells, and laying the groundwork for early investigative journalism. Blythe worked for several newspapers throughout his career, including the Buffalo Express and the New York World; he also edited Cosmopolitan. Twain and his family moved to London in spring 1899, as he had been recommended to Dr. Jonas Henrik Kellgren, a Swedish osteopathic practitioner in Belgravia. They were persuaded to spend the summer at Kellgren's sanatorium by the lake in the Swedish village of Sanna. Coming back in fall, they continued the treatment in London, until Twain was convinced by lengthy inquiries in America that similar osteopathic expertise was available there. In mid-1900, Twain was the guest of newspaper proprietor Hugh Gilzean-Reid at Dollis Hill House, located on the north side of London. Twain wrote that he had "never seen any place that was so satisfactorily situated, with its noble trees and stretch of country, and everything that went to make life delightful, and all within a biscuit's throw of the metropolis of the world." Twain then returned to America in October 1900, having earned enough to pay off his debts. One of the more prominent and frequent targets of Twain’s satirical pen was Christian Science, along with its founder Mary Baker Eddy, so much so that a substantial Wikipedia article is devoted to his disputes with the movement and its founder. The seed of Twain’s book titled Christian Science (1907) was a controversial article, “Christian Science and the Book of Mrs Eddy”, that he wrote on the movement which was published in The Cosmopolitan in October 1899. This letter tells us that that article, published four months earlier, was so controversial that it cost the magazine ten thousand subscribers.