Twain’s coldest winter revisited

the coldest winter ... San Francisco — Wordorigins.org 2 October 2023 The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. —Mark Twain Open up just about any guidebook or web site about San Francisco and you’ll find this quote. The trouble is, Twain never said it, or at least it doesn’t appear in any of his published works or extant lette wordorigins.org

Dave Wilton at wordorigins.org delves into a famous-though-probably-inaccurate Mark Twain quote in his latest article. “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco,” has of course also been spun as “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in Duluth.” Wilton covers it all in detail, as did Tony Dierckins some years ago on zenithcity.com. Lake Superior Magazine also covered the subject in 2003.

Both Wilton and Dierckins offer this snappy comeback from the June 17, 1900 issue of the Duluth News Tribune:

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 of 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.