do you know what mark twain was doing in the summer of 1876?

answer 1: he was researching material for what would later become the prince and the pauper. TRUE.

answer 2: he was writing his great, great-american-novel the adventures of huckleberry finn. ALSO TRUE.

answer 3: he was penning bawdy elizabethan fanfiction that included the characters: queen elizabeth, william shakespeare, ben johnson, walter raleigh, and—my main squeeze—françois rabelais. MEGA TRUE!!!

1601 is its title. twain considered it so risque that it took him 26 years to finally acknowledge that he wrote it. said twain, “if there is a decent word findable in it, it’s because i overlooked it.” you can get it for free here.

Then fell they to talk about ye manners and customs of many peoples, and Master Shaxpur spake of ye boke of ye sieur Michael de Montaine, wherein was mention of ye custom of widows of Perigord to wear uppon ye headdress, in sign of widowhood, a jewel in ye similitude of a man’s member wilted and limber, whereat ye queene did laugh and say widows in England doe wear prickes too, but betwixt the thighs, and not wilted neither, till coition hath done that office for them. Master Shaxpur did likewise observe how yt ye sieur de Montaine hath also spoken of a certain emperor of such mighty prowess that he did take ten maidenheddes in ye compass of a single night, ye while his empress did entertain two and twenty lusty knights between her sheetes, yet was not satisfied; whereat ye merrie Countess Granby saith a ram is yet ye emperor’s superior, sith he wil tup above a hundred yewes ‘twixt sun and sun; and after, if he can have none more to shag, will masturbate until he hath enrich’d whole acres with his seed.

Then spake ye damned windmill, Sr Walter, of a people in ye uttermost parts of America, yt capulate not until they be five and thirty yeres of age, ye women being eight and twenty, and do it then but once in seven yeres.