Maybe I’m cynical but I don’t think we can attribute every quirky 19th-century author’s bizarre style of dress or relentless reliance on a signature cocktail to pure “eccentricity.” I’m pretty sure at least a handful of them were fully aware of what they were doing.

I’m also pretty sure they had plenty of failed contemporaries with even wackier tactics at underhanded self-promotion. We do not remember them now. Maybe they focused too much on “the brand,” or whatever they called it in 1870, and let it get ahead of them. Maybe, under all that smoke and mirrors, they were crappy writers too. If Sam Clemens had been less about the quality writing and more about picking a cool name, perfecting his trademark ‘stache-twhirl, and spewing out buzzworthy maxims (OMG, he was like, the first Twitterer!) I doubt he’d be more than a literary afterthought.