In 1866, with mostly newspaper articles and other short works to his name, Mark Twain accepted an assignment from the Sacramento Union to produce a weekly column from Hawaii. More
The first writer that I really fell in love with was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in particular his Sherlock Holmes stories, and the first story that I ever wrote was a Sherlock Holmes story. More
I write to twine ideas and images into big subversive pretzels of life, death, and goofiness—on the chance that, like the Trickster figure in tribal myths, they might help keep the world lively and give it the flexibility to endure. More
Mark Twain’s quote “The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read” had a significant influence on me in my early years, which helped me take to reading seriously. More
The Harper Prize Novel is introduced as a competition to discover unknown authors, and receives more than 700 submissions in its first year. The first winner, The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson, is later awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel (1924). More
Mark Twain signs an exclusive contract with Harper & Brothers, which serializes Joan of Arc in its periodicals and publishes it as a book one year later. More
In this “Word of Apology” published in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in January 1854, the Harper brothers address the devastating fire that ruined their New York City offices on Cliff Street in late 1853. More
Harper’s New Monthly Magazine launches in June, serializing Charles Dickens’s Bleak House, as well as then unknown authors Herman Melville and Mark Twain. More
The Harper brothers consistently sought ways to reach more readers with less expensive publications, and in 1850 they revolutionized the concept of the modern literary magazine with Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. More