Famous quotation about the weather in San Francisco (Duluth in 1900) and a mystery volume with restricted access in Google Books

[Joel S. Berson]

Jon, Garson,

Harvard seems to have vols. 2 through 49 (1816) with some
missing.  What volume and page are we looking for?

Joel

At 7/11/2011 06:52 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Garson, Eighteenth Century Collections Online contains one volume of this
>magazine only (1793).
>
>I could not find the passage in question.
>
>On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 6:35 PM, Garson O'Toole
><adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Famous quotation about the weather in San Francisco (Duluth
> > in
> >              1900) and a mystery volume with restricted access in Google
> > Books
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > The periodical "The Sporting Magazine; or Monthly Calendar of the
> > Transactions of the Turf" was the first English sporting periodical,
> > and it was published between 1792 and 1870 according to Wikipedia an
> > occasionally reliable website. So why is the following digital volume
> > locked up in Google Books?
> >
> > http://books.google.com/books?id=qRQGAAAAQAAJ&
> >
> > The images were created from a copy at Oxford University. GB does not
> > give a date or any other bibliographic data about this mystery volume.
> > I cannot find the volume at HathiTrust. I do not know how to search
> > for it at the Internet Archive because I have been unable to extract a
> > date. The volume interests me because it contains the following
> > excerpt:
> >
> > All admit this to have been the most open winter in their remembrance.
> > Beresford, when asked if he ever knew such a Winter, replied with his
> > usual quickness, "Yes, last Summer."
> >
> > http://books.google.com/books?id=qRQGAAAAQAAJ&q=Beresford#search_anchor
> >
> > I sent a message to Google to request the full display of "The
> > Sporting Magazine" volume. If some list member can extract a date from
> > this book or has a suggestion for obtaining access please let me know.
> >
> > Here is some additional background for this topic. I am exploring the
> > following well-known saying attributed to Mark Twain: The coldest
> > winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.
> >
> > Multiple references state that there is no compelling evidence that
> > Twain is responsible for this saying. However, the references also
> > note that Twain did write a letter containing the following:
> >
> >  ...anywhere is better than Paris. Paris the cold, Paris the drizzly,
> > Paris the rainy, Paris the damnable. More than a hundred years ago
> > somebody asked Quin, "Did you ever see such a winter in all your life
> > before?" "Yes," said he, "Last summer." I judge he spent his summer in
> > Paris.
> >
> > - letter to Lucius Fairchild, 28 April 1880, reprinted in Mark Twain,
> > The Letter Writer
> >
> > http://www.twainquotes.com/Paris.html
> >
> > The quotation in "The Sporting Magazine" may help to illuminate the
> > history of the quip used by Twain. If someone wishes to offer an
> > interpretation for the term "open winter" I would like to hear it. My
> > guess is that the phrase refers to the existence of a large number of
> > competitive race horses.
> >
> > I am also tracing jokes matching the template of the San Francisco
> > saying. Here are the two earliest I have found so far in 1900 and
> > 1901:
> >
> > Cite: 1900 June 17, Duluth News-Tribune, [No article title], Page 12,
> > Column 3, Duluth, Minnesota. (GenealogyBank)
> >
> > One of these days somebody will tell that mouldy chestnut about the
> > finest winter he ever saw being the summer he spent in Duluth, and one
> > or these husky commercial travelers, who have been here and know all
> > about our climate, will smite him with an uppercut and break his
> > slanderous jaw. The truth will come out in time.
> >
> > Cite: 1901 June 17, Morning Herald, Interesting Experiences Of Local
> > Man Who Deals in Weather - Exciting Incidents That Do Not Appear In
> > His Records, GBK Page 6, Column 2, Lexington, Kentucky.
> > (GenealogyBank)
> >
> > Another assignment was to Duluth, Minn., where he learned to
> > appreciate rapid changes in temperature. He says the coldest winter he
> > ever experienced was the summer he spent in Duluth.
> >
> > Over a span of more than one hundred years many locations were
> > substituted into this joke including: Milwaukee, Two Harbors, Grand
> > Marais, Puget Sound, Buffalo, Minneapolis, and San Francisco.
> >
> > Thanks for any help
> > Garson
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
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> >
>
>
>
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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