In 1897, Samuel Clemens — better known by his pen name, Mark Twain
— was in London with his family. That May, a rumor was going around in the United States that Twain was gravely ill, followed by a rumor that he was dead.
According to legend, an American newspaper had printed his obituary and, when told this by a reporter, Twain quipped: “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
Sometimes this is quoted as “grossly exaggerated.” Sometimes the line is said to have been in a telegram Twain sent.
Either way, it’s a misquote.
It is true that a reporter from the New York Journal, Frank Marshall White, contacted Twain in London and asked about his health.
White’s report about Twain was published in the Journal on June 2, 1897 (though the article was dated June 1).
It said, in part:
Mark Twain was undecided whether to be more amused or annoyed when a Journal representative informed him today of the report in New York that he was dying in poverty in London...
The great humorist, while not perhaps very robust, is in the best of health. He said:
“I can understand perfectly how the report of my illness got about, I have even heard on good authority that I was dead. James Ross Clemens, of St. Louis, a cousin of mine, was seriously ill two or three weeks ago in London, but is well now. The report of my illness grew out of his illness.
The report of my death was an exaggeration.”
A popular biography of Twain published in 1912, two years after his death, probably helped create the famous misquotation.
That book was written by the well-known biographer Albert Bigelow Paine. It told what is probably an apocryphal, or at least embellished, story about Twain’s death quip.
Paine claimed that a young reporter “ferreted out” Twain in London and said his editor had instructed him to write a 500-word story if Twain was ill, or a 1,000-word story if Twain was dead.
According to Paine’s biography, Twain responded: “You don’t need as much as that...Just say the report of my death has been grossly exaggerated.” (Chapter 197, “Finishing the Book of Travel.”)
Today, most scholarly books of quotations cite Twain’s quote as “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”
But the “greatly exaggerated” version is still the one most people think is Twain’s real quote.
Of course, as Twain wrote in his book Following the Equator, published in November of 1897: “It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive.”
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