To James Redpath
12 June 1871 • Elmira, N.Y.
(MS: MH-H, UCCL 00616)

Elmira June 12.

Dear Redpath—

Begin my tour in the West if you prefer it—it does not matter to me.1

What is Olive & those other dead beats charging?—or what did they charge last year? I don’t want to be cheaper than them, I don’t.2

Ys

Mark.

[letter docketed:] 6/23.71

Explanatory Notes

Editorial Signs

Click to add citation to My Citations.

1 Clemens had evidently not yet received a reply to his letter of 10 June to Redpath and Fall—but he would within three days (15 June 71 to Redpath). None of Redpath’s or Fall’s letters to him for this period has been found; the next surviving letter from the Boston Lyceum Bureau is dated 25 November 1871 (28 Nov 71 to Fall).

Click to add citation to My Citations.

2 Figures have not been found for the 1870–71 lecture season, but in 1869–70 Olive Logan’s lowest fee was $100, which she received even in small towns like Danvers, Massachusetts, where, on 17 November 1869, Clemens received $75 (Lyceum 1869, 3; Eubank, 134–36).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Houghton Library, Harvard University (MH-H).

Previous publication: L4, 407.

Provenance:bequeathed to MH in 1918 by Evert J. Wendell.