Mr. Mark Twain—Dear Sir: I have been a good deal interested in the Byron-Scandal lately stirred up on earth by Mrs. Harriett Beecher Stowe—for the Under-World takes the papers & is always posted. ... the plain truth is, I did do all that wickedness I am charged withal. I did that, & more. I am the Wickedest Man in—in this region. My conscience tortures me night & day. Nothing will relieve me but a confession. The recent revelation gave me some relief, but only a little—only a little. It only revealed one of my crimes—one of my mildest. What I need is a full exposé. Let me whisper in your ear: I had nine children by the late Mrs. Leigh. I devoured them. I destroyed my maternal grandfather with a pitchfork—not in a spirit of revenge, but simply as an experiment, to see if one’s grandfather could be destroyed with a pitchfork. I threw my paternal grandfather out of the fifth story window, just to see what he would say. He never se said anything. I flayed my brother John alive, merely to annoy him. I have committed all the crimes known t[o] the law. I have robbed, & burned, & betrayed, & assassinated. (SLC 1869, 1, 3–5)

There are some things which cannot be burlesqued, for the simple reason that in themselves they are so extravagant and grotesque that nothing is left for burlesque to take hold of. For instance, all attempts to burlesque the “Byron Scandal” were failures because the central feature of it, incest, was a “situation” so tremendous and so imposing that the happiest available resources of burlesque seemed tame and cheap in its presence. (SLC 1870, 137)