As part of the run-up to the new PBS documentary series on Mark Twain, National Public Radio engaged in a little public broadcasting backscratching by interviewing Ken Burns on Morning Edition.
Bob Edwards mentioned that NPR was linking to the only known video of Mark Twain on their website. Sounded interesting, so I headed that way and landed on a Mark Twain fan site run by the Hannibal Courier-Post. (Who, I’m sure, must be thrilled that their name is now synonymous with serial killers.)
The video, of course, is silent, so you can thrill to the sight of Mr. Clemens wandering around his building and drinking tea with a few friends.
The cameraman, one Thomas Edison.
Now, I’m not one to tell Tom Edison he had the wrong idea, but the hell with a silent tea-drinking Twain. The two men were in the same room together! Tom, please, you should have hauled along your best audio recording spools and recorded a few hours of you and Sam, just shooting the breeze. That would have been priceless.
Actually, Edison did indeed record the voice of Mark Twain. It’s unknown exactly how many recordings were made, but it appears that all of them were lost in a fire, probably not long after the recordings were made. No other recordings have ever turned up. What a shame.