To Charles Dudley Warner
30 December 1873 • London, England
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 01021)

London, Dec. 30.

My Dear Warner:

I have made 3 different appointments to meet Tom Taylor, & have failed to go, every time. He lives miles & miles away, in the edge of London—& that accounts for it. But on New Year’s day, Dolby is to rout me out & take me there, by main force. Routledge sent me the book yesterday, & I do think it reads more & more bullier. I know it ought to dramatize well.1 The editor of the Cosmopolitan told me he got a copy day before yesterday & read it entirely through, without laying it down. But he said he fell in love with Laura, & so he ripped & cursed when she died.2

Livy’s letters are always full of your & Susie’s3 constant & unfailing kindnesses to her, & I am as grateful as she is, I can tell you. Lord knows I am glad [that ]I am likely to see all of you 2 or 3 days sooner than I expected. I made a mistake: I sail for Boston, on the 13th, in the Parthia, instead of for New York the 17th in the [Abysinnia]. I ought to be home by the 25th.4 I seem almost there now.

With love to you both,

Samℓ. L. Clemens

Chas. Dudley Warner Esq
Editor “Courant”
Hartford
Conn. [in upper left corner:] Personal. | [rule] [on flap:] slc [postmarked:] [london-w]zb de 30 73 [and] li [and] [boston jan 14 paid]

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 On 5 January 1874 Clemens wrote to Taylor to tell him he had called “the other day” and found only his wife at home. He concluded, “As I leave here on the 7th, the opportunity has gone by to speak to you upon the business I had in mind, of course, but I trust that it can never be too late for an erring man to offer an honest apology for his misdeeds—& this I am now moved to do” (Sturdevant, 8). Clemens evidently wanted Taylor’s advice about dramatizing The Gilded Age (see also 17 May 73 to Warner, n. 4).

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2 The Cosmopolitan’s editor has not been identified. This weekly journal, “published simultaneously in London, Paris, and New York,” contained “not only the news of both hemispheres, but also the political, commercial, literary, art, and social on dits of these capitals of civilization. A great feature is made of the opinions of the press on all subjects.” The first number was published in October 1865, and the last appeared in 1876 (Newspaper Press Directory, 21, 143; Tercentenary Handlist, 104). Laura Hawkins dies in chapter 60 of The Gilded Age (see 16 Apr 73 to Fairbanks, n. 2).

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3 Susan Warner.

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4 The Cunard steamship Parthia, with Clemens aboard, departed from Liverpool on 13 January and arrived in Boston on 26 January (“Cunard Line,” London Times, 31 Dec 73, 2; “Return of Mark Twain,” Boston Evening Transcript, 26 Jan 74, 4).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).

Previous publication: L5, 541–542.

Provenance:donated to CU-MARK in January 1950 by Mary Barton of Hartford, a close friend of the Warners’, who had owned it since at least 1938.

Emendations and textual notes:

that • thastt

Abysinnia • [‘ni’ conflated; sic]

london-w • lon []n-w [stamped off edge]

boston jan 14 paid • b[]st[]n jan [14] pai[d] [badly inked]