The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Spectacle Class M phonographs, rented out to the public from May 1889, were difficult to handle and frequently got out of order. This letter from Robert Belford, who issued the first American edition of Belford's Magazine, to the novelist Edward Howard House proves this.

Edward H. House is best known for his involvement in a bitter lawsuit with Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) throughout 1890 over play rights to The Prince and the Pauper. Finally, the case was decided in favor of House and ended in a settlement.

Clemens was interested in the phonograph early on, and even rented one to dictate the text for a new book on cylinders in 1891. On the basis of this interesting document of August 1889 it seems that his former close friend Edward H. House anticipated him, and was perhaps the first author who used the phonograph at home.

It is really surprising that NO RECORDING of Mark Twain survives today, even though he would have made so many dictations with that machine!

Starkton, you continue to amaze me for providing such interesting materials all the time, Many thanks for posting this.

transformingArt wrote:It is really surprising that NO RECORDING of Mark Twain survives today, even though he would have made so many dictations with that machine!

Starkton, you continue to amaze me for providing such interesting materials all the time, Many thanks for posting this.

There was, of course, the recording he was known to have made for Bettini, which was unfortunately destroyed during WWII......

transformingArt wrote:It is really surprising that NO RECORDING of Mark Twain survives today, even though he would have made so many dictations with that machine!

Yes indeed! Clemens already recorded a few funny stories when he visited the Edison laboratory on June 21, 1888. Unfortunately, the cylinders were destroyed in the "great fire" at Edison's factory in December 1914.

Lucius1958 wrote: There was, of course, the recording he was known to have made for Bettini, which was unfortunately destroyed during WWII......

Well, the Bettini warehouse was apparently destroyed during the WWI, not WWII.

But apparently Bettini still kept some of his most precious recordings by himself until he died. I've read somewhere that In a 1934 letter to William H. Seltsam, the head of International Record Collectors' Club, Bettini wrote that he still have a private cylinder record of Jean de Reszke!!! And according to Bettini's son, Bettini even made private cylinders of Enrico Caruso!!!! I hope they have survived, somewhere to be found.

By the way, I wonder what happened to Bettini's recording of President Benjamin Harrison. An acetate copy and reel tape duplicates of the recording itself survives in Vincent Voice Library (although their attribution of identity of speaker is not entirely correct), and Library of Congress, but I never heard a thing where the original cylinder resides today.

It is possible that Bettini even recorded Nicola Tesla whom he met on the occasion of a stag party in February 1894 in the New York studio of the American impressionist painter Robert Reid. Mark Twain, leading Italian baritone Mario Ancona, famous Swedish artist Anders Zorn and French actor Coquelin also attended.

Starkton wrote: French actor Coquelin also attended.

I heard Phonogalarie in Paris has the Bettini cylinder of Coquelin. Actually, there is a video on YouTube on their account, playing a Bettini cylinder on a Bettini machine, which sounds like Coquelin to me; here's the one.

[youtubehq]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSR4z_0OOK8[/youtubehq]

Of course, Coquelin made some other recordings which survives today; the most famous one would be the "Soundtrack" of Cyrano de Bergerac duel scene filmed for 1900 Paris Exposition. I have heard he even made some discs along with his brother, but never saw any copy nor heard the recording.