About the Text
The following play script has been edited from two existing texts. The first is a handwritten manuscript, Colonel Sellers: A Drama in Five Acts , which was registered with the Library of congress in July of 1874. This was a pre-production script. The second manuscript is a typed rendering of John T. Raymond's production script which is a part of the Theatre Collection, Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries. It is listed under the title The Gilded Age or Colonel Sellers by Mark Twain, with the notation: "Originally played by John T. Raymond". This script reflects the rewriting which Mr. Clemens did before the 1874 New York premier of The Gilded Age.
In editing a single text for this volume, I have chosen to use the pre-production script as its foundation. All parts of the text which vary from this script (i.e., those coming from the Raymond script), are denoted by the use of brackets [ ]. I have made no effort to indicate which lines were totally cut from the original script for production purposes; however, it may be of interest to note that Laura Hawkins' lines suffered some in the production script (most notably the entire last scene between Laura and her family, which was cut from the production), while Sellers' (Raymond's) were bolstered. Of course, the choice between two versions of essentially the same line is a subjective one. I based those choices on my theatrical training and experience, and went with I felt was the more "playable" dialogue. Often choices were made on a word-by-word basis. On occasion, even when a series of lines were worded alike, their order had been changed in the production script. I have noted these passages within the text.
Stylistically, I have taken the minor liberty of using modern playwriting form in denoting character names in all-capital letters. Also, because of the format differences between the two manuscripts themselves, I have deferred to the handwritten script's style while editing a single text. For instance, the latter script lists the characters by their first name, while the original uses their last names. Accordingly, if a line that is headed "SI" is used from the production script, I have headed it "MR HAWKINS". The original script includes the stage directions within the dialogue, which can be confusing; therefore I have adopted the production script's method of setting-off stage directions on a separate line and in parenthesis.
Twain's manuscript is often inconsistent in it's spelling, particularly of dialect words like UNCLE DANIEL'S pronunciation of the word "children", which Twain spells: chil'en, chil'len or chillen at various times. In such cases I have standardized the spelling throughout the text according to the most frequent usage.
The most predominant, and I might add, indiscriminate, punctuation to be found in the handwritten manuscript is the dash. I have substituted proper punctuation when clarity demanded. In addition, quotation marks have been added where they were obviously required. Several shortcuts were also taken by the transcriber of the handwritten manuscript, and who could blame the person. For example, "Col" is often used instead of "Colonel", and "&" instead of "and". Where ever these appeared within the dialogue, I used the long form. These changes make reading easier, without harming the integrity of the text. While purists might object to these "liberties", my intention has always been to produce a readable text that would not only reach an audience that includes Twain scholars and educators, but also theatre historians, critics, dramatists, producers, and even the casual reader. I do this in order to stimulate academic and public interest in this forgotten work and with no attempt at being the final word on the subject.
