Mark Twain was an occasional target of fakeographers, a school of paparazzi and engravers who employed an early type of photoshopping to manipulate images published in newspapers and magazines.1 In the periodical press there were several points at which manipulation could take place: by overlaying two or more camera negatives; by inking out parts of the single or multiple exposure; or by alterations performed on the engraving process block. The altered yet realistic image, different from line-drawn caricature, occasionally had nefarious uses but was usually designed for comic effect. For example, in February 1892, the London Idler printed an altered version of a photograph by Napoleon Sarony taken in 1883. (Figure 1.) In the fakeograph Mark Twain clenches a corncob pipe in his teeth.2 (Figure 2.)
The frontispiece to Following the Equator (1897) taken by photographer Walter G. Chase3 (Figure 3)...
