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

[George Thompson]

*The life of Mr. James Quin, comedian. With the history of the stage from
his commencing actor to his retreat to Bath.  L*ondon, MDCCLXVI. [1766].

This is in the 18th C Collections Online.  The words "summer" and "july"
seem to not appear in the text; the word "winter" appears 3 or 4 times, but
not in this context.

GAT

On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 5:08 PM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

> Fantastic! Thanks Stephen. As you noted "The Life of Mr. James Quin,
> comedian" is a reprint according to the "Prefatory Note" which states:
>
> The first portion of the following work is a reprint of the
> exceedingly scarce life of James Quin published in 1766
>
> The quip appears on page 100 and may be part of the added material.
> WorldCat and the University of North Carolina catalog give a
> publication date of 1887, but I cannot find that date in the scanned
> images of the GB copy. The year 1864 is mentioned on page 12. But an
> erratum on page 107 says "Page 12  - for 1864 read 1684" so that
> occurrence is a misprint.
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=6FwLAAAAIAAJ&q=erratum#v=snippet&
>
> The version of the joke in "The Life of Mr. James Quin, comedian" is
> intriguing and does differ from the version Mark Twain heard credited
> to Quin.
>
>
> The "The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford" were published in
> multiple editions. The first publication date that I can see in Google
> Books is dated 1840.
>
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=tRtEAAAAcAAJ&q=%22bad+a+winter%22#v=snippet&
>
> The occurrence of a variant of the joke in Sporting Magazine appears
> to be circa 1846 so it may have been created by someone who had read
> (or been influenced by) "The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of
> Orford".
>
> The version of the quip in the "The Letters of Horace Walpole" is
> similar to the version that Mark Twain attributed to Quin in 1880. The
> "Letters" were reprinted several times. Below is a link to an edition
> in 1866. So the joke may have been transmitted to Mark Twain directly
> or indirectly via an edition of the "Letters". Twain said that Quin
> made his witty remark more than one hundred years ago. The letter with
> the gag is given a date of 1789 (as Stephen notes) in the "Letters",
> so Twain may have had knowledge of that date, or he may have been told
> about that approximate date.
>
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=vBoRAAAAYAAJ&q=%22bad+a+winter%22#v=snippet&
>
> Garson
>
> On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 7:00 AM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu>
> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: Famous quotation about the weather in San Francisco
> (Duluth
> >              in              1900) and a mystery volume with restricted
> access
> >              in Google Books
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Oops, the Google "Life" is a supplemented reprint.
> > ________________________________________
> > From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Stephen Goranson [goranson at DUKE.EDU]
> > Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2011 6:46 AM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Famous quotation about the weather in San Francisco
>              (Duluth              in              1900) and a mystery volume
> with restricted access              in Google Books
> >
> > Compare;
> > The Life of Mr. James Quin, comedian: with the history of the stage from
> his ... (London, 1766) page 100:
> > One summer, when the month of July happened to be extremely cold, someone
> asked Quin if he ever remembered such a summer.
> > "Oh, yes," replied the wag, "last winter."
> >
> >
> http://books.google.com/books?id=6FwLAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA100&dq=summer+quin+%22last+winter%22&hl=en&ei=TCMcTqq9OYzPgAe66cHICQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=summer%20quin%20%22last%20winter%22&f=false
> >
> > For a version that has: Quin being once asked, if he had ever seen so bad
> a winter, replied, "Yes,  just such a one last summer."
> > In a 29 July 1789 letter from Horace Walpole to Mary Berry
> > The Yale edition of Horace Walpole's correspondence
> > Volume 11 p45 (confirmed)
> >
> http://books.google.com/books?id=ZSMJAQAAIAAJ&q=winter+%22last+summer%22+%22james+quin%22&dq=winter+%22last+summer%22+%22james+quin%22&hl=en&ei=GR4cTtLuHOTl0QHjl_DPBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAg
> >
> > Stephen Goranson
> > http://www.duke.edu/~goranson
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ.
Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.

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