The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

[2] Twain first wrote the title short story at the request of his friend Artemus Ward, for inclusion in an upcoming book.

Twain developed the idea further, and Bret Harte published this version in The Californian on December 16, 1865; this time titled "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", and Smiley's name was changed to Greeley.

[4] Further popularity of the tale led Twain to use the story to anchor his own first book, which appeared in 1867 with a first issue run of only 1,000 copies.

The first edition was issued in seven colors (with no priority) — blue, brown, green, lavender, plum, red, and terra-cotta — and is sought after by book collectors, fetching thousands of dollars at auctions.

When a stranger visits the camp, Jim shows off Dan'l and offers to bet $40 that it can out-jump any other frog in Calaveras County.

He then published all three versions in 1903 under the title "The Jumping Frog: in English, then in French, and then Clawed Back into a Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unremunerated Toil".

He wrote: Now, then, the interesting question is, did the frog episode happen in Angels Camp in the spring of ‘49, as told in my hearing that day in the fall of 1865?

He told me this in England in 1899 or 1900, and was much troubled about that censure, for his act had been innocent, he believing that the story's origin was so well known as to render formal mention of it unnecessary.

[11] Lukas Foss composed The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, an opera in two scenes with libretto by Jean Karsavina, based on Twain's story.

[13] Privately, to his colleague Bret Harte, Twain wrote it was "full of damnable errors of grammar and deadly inconsistencies of spelling in the Frog sketch because I did not read the proofs".