The Vault at Pfaff's

An Archive of Art and Literature by the Bohemians of Antebellum New York

A Private History of the 'Jumping Frog' Story

Twain, Mark. "A Private History of the 'Jumping Frog' Story." The North American Review, April 1, 1894, 446-453.
Electronic Source Available
Type
magazine
Genre
essay
Abstract

Twain discusses a claim from a "Professor Van Dyke, of Princeton," that his "Jumping Frog" story was acutally thousands of years old and based on a Greek tale. To discuss this, Twain presents several versions of the "Jumping Frog" story. Twain also discuses the publication of the "Jumping Frog" in the Saturday Press and gives himself the "honor and credit" of "killing" the paper.

People Mentioned in this Work
Clapp, Henry [pages: 450]

Twain claims that Artemus Ward gave Clapp the Jumping Frog story as a "present," and "Clapp put it in his Saturday Press, and it killed that paper with a suddenness that was beyond praise" (450).

Twain, Mark
Ward, Artemus [pages: 450]

Twain claims that Artemus Ward gave Clapp the Jumping Frog story as a "present," and "Clapp put it in his Saturday Press, and it killed that paper with a suddenness that was beyond praise."