JF Ptak Science Books: Mark Twain: Bra and Blank Book Patenter

A Daily History of Holes, Dots, Lines, Science, History, Math, Physics, Art, the Unintentional Absurd, Architecture, Maps, Data Visualization, Blank and Missing Things, and so on. |1.6 million words, 7500 images, 4.9 million hits| Press & appearances in The Times, Le Figaro, Mensa, The Economist, The Guardian, Discovery News, Slate, Le Monde, Sci American Blogs, Le Point, and many other places... 5000+ total posts since 2008.. Contact johnfptak at gmail dot com

WWI Photography Catalog

Google search

The Fine Print

The History of Ideas Blog by John Ptak is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at longstreet.typepad.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.thesciencebookstore.com.

« Hearing Patterns in Gases, 1894 | Main | Discovering RED in Advertising, 1942: Candy as Food and Cigarettes as Tasty »

Mark Twain: Bra and Blank Book Patenter

JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post

Samuel Clemens (1835-1910), who became Mark Twain in 1863 and then mostly stayed that way, had a great mind and was a superb writer and story teller--he wasn't necessarily a great inventor, however. In the ear;y sea of his great achievements, in 1871--just after the publication of his first real best-seller, Innocents Abroad, 1869)--Clemens applied for and was granted a patent for a bra clasp. I don't know if it is the bra clasp, or not, but for whatever reason Clemens pursued this interest all the way to the end.

In the year after the publication of Roughing It, and three years before the publication of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Clemens patented--essentially--a blank book. It was a special book/holder for the very-popular practice of scrap booking, and it seems rather ironic that someone who filled up so many books with words would get a patent for the sale of books that didn't have any. Curious.