Maxwell Geismar Mark Twain: An American Prophet, Houghton Mifflin Co.: Boston, MA, 1970, 564 pp.
[p. 130] . . .
. . . it is interesting to note how many other stories by Mark Twain in the early nineties dealt with various aspects of [p. 131] this theme [unexpected and undeserved wealth]. The get-rich-quick mania was the central folk myth of the period; and wasn't Samuel Clemens himself an example of this historical American dream-or nightmare? This was the period of boom and depression in steady succession; of financial wizardry and fiscal legerdemain; of the great Wall Street battles for control, power and manipulation of the new corporations, combines and monopolies. It was the period of our "interior colonization," so to speak-the development of the internal American empire which, having devoured the enormous wealth of one continent, would soon stretch out its claws for tempting foreign treats. The dominance of this new tribe of cunning, ruthless, unscrupulous and amoral financial titans and tycoons would change the whole nature of American life, as Sam Clemens had known it . . .
. . . he too had shared all the comforts and luxury and material conveniences of sudden wealth on his part, inherited wealth on Livy's part, and now he was suddenly about to taste all the ignoble, sordid, and harrowing consequences . . . Deserting the Republican party on principal, as a Mugwump, he was an associate . . . [p. 132]
Since 1880 he had been intrigued and entranced by the fabulous commercial possibilities of the Page typesetting machine which was being developed at the Colt Arms Factory in Connecticut . . .
[p. 133] . . .
In 1889 Clemens became the sole owner of the Paige typesetter . . . By 1890, Clemens was borrowing money from Livy's mother . . . He was trying desperately . . . to raise money, money from such old friends and acquaintances as another mining millionaire, Senator John P. Jones of Nevada . . .