Dear Ms. Jane Hutton,
As I mentioned to you on the telephone today (December 17, 2018), most of my career has involved research in the literary field of Mark Twain studies. Since he was an enormously popular author who corresponded and interacted with literally thousands of people during his lifetime (1835-1910), I frequently need to obtain reliable information about the background of these individuals in the course of quoting or referring to them. My searches for relevant facts too often turn up only dates chiseled on a tombstone; even their obituaries are sometimes either missing or cryptic.
It is such a relief whenever I discover that the person lived into the era when Marquis Who’s Who had an opportunity to profile them.
Relatively few of my social contemporaries seem to be aware of how easily one can slip through the cracks of human history and utterly disappear into the void without leaving more than a few traces of our activities, achievements, or our very existence. I am especially conscious of this possibility because of the nature of my historical scholarship.
I wish that everyone on earth could have an entry in your wonderful publications!
Sincerely,
Alan Gribben
