To William Dean Howells
22? July 1874 • Elmira, N.Y.
(MS: ViU, UCCL 01110)

Elmira, July 15.1

My Dear Howells—

D Consound my cats—as Mrs. Clemens says when roused to ferocity—I particularly hoped to get your answering telegram while I was in Hartford, so that I could meddle in the terms. If you had only required $500 down instead of $400, & had then [takcked ] on the other details, it would have been entirely satisfactory to me. I couldn’t really make up my mind about a price at first, standing between two personal friends—but if one or the other of you had been a stranger I would have known all about how to proceed. I came very near telegraphing you, after I got back here, to be sure & charge enough, but it seemed a sort of disloyalty to Pope to be legging for the other side all the time. But I think you made an admirable bargain.2 No doubt you & I both underrate the value worth of the work far enough; but that you are warrior enough to stand up & charge anything above a week’s board is gaudy manliness in a [literary ] person. Our guild are so egotistically mock-modest about their own [merits. We ] make a wretched bargain—caressing our darling humility the while—& then when we come to think how much more we could have got, we go behind the house & [curse. By ] George I admire you. I suppose “consuling” is not without its uses— it breeds common sense in parties who would otherwise develop only the uncommon.3

I welcome you to the dramatic field—where I myself am browsing, now. I have taken my characters in the Gilded Age & worked them up into a 5-act drama entitled “Col. Sellers.” I don’t think much of it, as a drama, but I suppose it will do to hang Col. Sellers on, & maybe even damn him. He will play tolerably well, in the hands of a good actor. I have leased the play to John T. Raymond, comedian, who lately played in Boston.4

I have just had a note from Pope, who, naturally enough, is charmed with you & delighted in ‸with‸ the prospect of a translation to his liking.5

All our tribe are tolerably well, & we hope to drag you & your tribe, & the Aldrich[e]s down to Hartford again in the winter.

Ever Yours

Samℓ L. Clemens

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Clemens’s statement, in the third paragraph, that he has “just” received a note from Charles Pope, which was dated and postmarked 20 July (see note 5), shows that he misdated this letter. He may have meant to write “July 25,” but since he clearly answered the following letter from Howells, a delay of almost two weeks seems unusual. It is somewhat more likely that he simply misread his calendar by one week, writing “July 15” instead of “July 22,” soon after receiving Pope’s letter and just nine or ten days after receiving Howells’s letter (CU-MARK):

UCLC32019

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Howells returned on 8 July from visiting his father in Quebec; his 11 July letter was written from Cambridge, during one of his frequent trips from Jaffrey, New Hampshire, where his family was spending the summer (Howells 1979 [bib01004], 3, 60–64).

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2 Clemens had recommended Howells to Pope to translate Sansone (Samson) by Italian playwright Ippolito d’Aste. Pope planned to produce and take the leading role in the play. Clemens evidently notified Howells of his recommendation in a “letter and telegraph” (now lost), probably sent from Elmira between 21 and 29 June and from Hartford between 1 and 3 July, respectively. The terms that Howells described were formalized in an agreement signed on Thursday, 9 July (Howells 1979 [bib01004], 63 n. 4). Charles R. Pope (1832–99) received early training as a printer, but in 1848 began a long career as an actor and theater manager. By 1874 he had performed in or managed theaters in New York, New Orleans, St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Kansas City. In 1861 he began a three-year tour of the West Coast. While performing at Maguire’s Opera House in Virginia City, Nevada, in 1863, Pope joined Clemens’s Territorial Enterprise colleagues in a practical joke: he made the presentation speech when Clemens was tricked into grandiosely accepting a cheap, imitation meerschaum pipe (see MTB, 1:224–27, and Mack, 248–51). How frequently the two men had stayed in touch is not known.

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3 Howells served as United States consul in Venice from 1861 to 1865. The appointment was a reward for his Life of Abraham Lincoln, a campaign biography published in 1860 (Howells: 1860; 1979 [bib00431], 3, 75 n. 3, 231 n. 1).

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4 Raymond (1836–87), born John O’Brien in Buffalo, had been acting professionally since 1853, appearing in comic roles throughout the United States and in London, often in support of the foremost actors of the day. During his 22 June to 2 July 1874 engagement at the Boston Museum, the city’s oldest theater, he took leading roles in several popular comedies. Raymond had already appeared as Colonel Sellers in Densmore’s unauthorized Gilded Age play in San Francisco. By 25 May Clemens may have already met with him in New York and opened negotiations for his production of the authorized version (see p. 149). Raymond originally planned to present Densmore’s play in Boston beginning on 22 June, but by 14 June had announced a substitution. It is not known whether he had already accepted an offer from Clemens at that time, or had merely been forced to abandon the unauthorized version. In any event, their agreement was public knowledge by 28 July, when the New York World reported, “Mark Twain has just leased his last literary production, a five-act drama which he has just finished, called ‘Colonel Sellers,’ to John J. Raymond, the comedian” (“Personal,” 4; “Amusements,” Boston Evening Transcript, 22 June–2 July 74; Bacon, 73; “Notes,” Boston Globe, 12 June 74, 4; “Amusements,” Boston Herald, 14 June 74, 3; 15 and 16 July 74 to Watt).

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5 Pope’s note, mailed the day he wrote it, went first to Hartford and then was forwarded to Elmira (CU-MARK):

UCLC32023

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Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Clifton Waller Barrett Library, Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville (ViU).

Previous publication: L6, 193–95; MTHL, 1:20–21.

Provenance:deposited at ViU by Clifton Waller Barrett on 17 December 1963.

Emendations and textual notes:

takcked • [‘k’ partly formed]

literary • lite-| er rary

merits. We • merits.—|We

curse. By • curse.—.|By