Hands On

^M TE^AC^RH^KNO^TL^WOG^AIS^INT^:

^H CO^OU^WLD^TH N^E ’T^AM^UA^TK^HE^OI^RT ^OA^FS A VENTURE ANGEL.

By Bruce Sterling

AS A TEEN, HE EARNED HIS LIVING AS A printer in St. Louis, Philadelphia, New York, and Cincinnati. He roamed the Mississippi as a steamboat pilot. He was a soldier for a couple of weeks, and a Nevada silver miner for a spell. He was a roughin’ it, hands-on, jack-of-all-trades.

Then his literary genius began to tell on him. Soon it was clear that he was much better at telling stories than he would ever be at making things.

Still, Samuel Clemens never shook off his romance with technology and invention. It’s in his books; A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is a time-travel yarn about a can-do techie who destroys medieval England through his ability to “make anything in the world.” Clemens himself was an ardent inventor: he created a perpetual-calendar watch-fob, a self-adjusting elastic strap to anchor his pants, and “Mark Twain’s Self-Pasting Scrap Book.”

The scrapbook made some money because any book with Mark Twain’s name on it would sell. His other hobbyhorses perished through public indifference. This hurt Clemens’ pride a bit, but at least he could write about invention: he was ever the stout public defender of the lone inventive genius.

Clemens realized early on that inventors were One obvious scheme was to start his own publish-mostly put-upon, solitary types, rarely properly ing house. He did this, and it was a quick success — rewarded. He also knew full well that the profit from not through his own writings, but from the best-Yankee ingenuity went mostly to investors and capi- selling deathbed memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant. This talists. He was an idealist, but he’d been around. business success emboldened him, but Clemens

As one of the best-known celebrities of his era, soon found that the hassles of small publishing Clemens had money to invest. He badly needed to were even more repulsive than the hassles of do this. Like most best-selling writers, Clemens had big publishing. an impressive income, but it was dangerously spo- So his attention returned to his first craft: printing. radic. Furthermore, Clemens was very much living Clemens was fascinated by the technical under-the high life in New York in a grand mansion, built to pinnings of the printing industry. He was willing to

his specs with all modern conveniences: six servants, private tutors for his daughters, and a needy host of guests, builders, plumbers, doctors, Tiffany decorators, and similar colorful encumbrances.

Even when Clemens was in top creative form, he was forced to hustle and make do, working the treadmill as a lone artist at the mercy of Gilded Age publishers. His lifelong dream was financial independence — a stable way to sit back, breathe easy, and thrive off investments.

Clemens was an ardent inventor: he created a perpetual-calendar watch-fob, a self-adjusting elastic strap to anchor his pants, and “Mark Twain’s Self-Pasting Scrap Book.”

24 Make: Volume 09