To Elisha Bliss, Jr.
20 April 1869 • Elmira, N.Y.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00286)

Elmira, Apl. 20.

Friend Bliss—

I wish you would have my revises revised again & look over them yourself & see that my marks have been corrected. A proof-reader who persists in making two words ‸(& sometimes even compound words)‸ of “anywhere” and “everything;” & who spells [villainy ] “villiany” & “[liquifies ]” &c, &c, is not three removes from an [idiot.— ] ‸infernally unreliable—‸ & so I don’t like to trust your man. He never yet has acceded to a request of mine made in the margin, in the matter of spelling & punctuation, as I know of. He shows spite—don’t trust him, but revise my revises yourself. I have long ago given up trying to get him to spell those first-mentioned words properly. He is an idiot—& like all idiots, is self-conceited. 1

I begin to be afraid there is too much MSS. It don’t seem to me that I ought to be only just getting to Herculaneum Pompeii at the 326th page—ought to be a heap further along than that, I should think. Half of the book is finished, now, but I feel almost sure that we it is going to crowd things to get the rest of the MSS into 326 pages more. Please run over & measure the remaining MSS & see how much more it is going to make than what you want. I shall hate like everything to leave here, (even for forty minutes—tell Mrs. Bliss that) but still, if the MSS must be cut down, & it can’t be helped, telegraph me & I will dart for Hartford instantaneously. at once immediately.

“The Innocents Abroad;

or

The Mod New Pilgrim’s Progress”

seems to be the neatest & the easiest understood—by farmers & everybody—suppose we adopt it—& you suggest to the artist an idea for a frontispiece ‸ il title-page‸—you are good at it—remember your idea about it before?—What they expected to see—& what they did see?2

Yrs—

Mark.

I think my next proof will include the chapter on Pompeii==please send me two copies of that chapter. Instruct your foreman about it, now while you think of it.3

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Clemens was returning his proofs (“revises”) for chapters 28–30 (pages 298–326) of The Innocents Abroad, which he had probably received from Bliss the previous day, or at the earliest, on Saturday, 17 April. (He was not reading revised proof, but rather was asking Bliss to do so.) All of the words referred to here had appeared in those pages at least once, but “any where” and “every thing” survived into print uncorrected, there and throughout the book. Bliss’s proofreader has not been identified.

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2 The cover and spine of The Innocents Abroad reproduced the title as Mark Twain wrote it here. “Pilgrim’s” became “Pilgrims’” on the title page, however, almost certainly at the instigation of the proofreader or publisher. This change created grammatical agreement with “Innocents,” but obscured the original contrast of Mark Twain with the hero of John Bunyan’s classic (Hirst, 229–30). Bliss followed up his own earlier suggestion, and “The Pilgrim’s Vision” appeared facing “The Quaker City in a Storm” as a double frontispiece.

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3 Bliss’s foreman has not been identified, nor has Clemens’s purpose in requesting the duplicate set of proofs been explained.

Dual frontispiece for The Innocents Abroad, reproduced from the first edition. See note 2.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

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

Previous publication: L3, 197–198; MTB, 1:380, brief quotation; Parke-Bernet 1938, lot 126, brief quotation; MTMF, 93, brief excerpts; Davis 1951; Davis 1959, 1; MTLP, 19–20.

Provenance:see Mendoza Collection, p.587.

Emendations and textual notes:

villainy • [second ‘i’ retraced, possibly for emphasis]

liquifies • [second ‘i’ retraced and underscored]

idiot.— • [deletion of dash implied]