1 Barnum (1810–91) had long since established himself as the most flamboyant showman of his age, beginning with his American Museum of curios, which opened in New York in 1842, and extending to his “Greatest Show on Earth,” a touring circus and menagerie, which opened in 1871. He probably first met Clemens in February 1872. Both men were in England at the end of 1873 and the beginning of 1874, but no meeting there has been documented (L5, 40 n. 1, 476; Saxon, 245–49). The present letter is the first of Clemens’s letters to Barnum known to survive. It answered the following letter (CU-MARK):

Three passes in Barnum’s hand, each admitting two persons to reserved seats (no city specified), survive with his letter. An unknown number of additional passes may have been enclosed. The show was in Hartford on 6 and 7 May. More than eleven thousand people, many from out of town, attended the two performances the first day, despite a rainstorm that turned the ground to mud before the tent could be pitched. It is not known whether Clemens was among them. Continuing poor conditions forced cancellation of the second day’s engagement (Hartford Courant: “Amusements,” 6 May 75, 1; “Barnum’s Hippodrome,” 7 May 75, 2; “The Hippodrome,” 8 May 75, 2). For Clemens’s “comet article,” see 17 July 74 to Albright, n. 3. Waldemere was primarily Barnum’s summer residence; he generally spent winters at his Fifth Avenue town house in New York (see 7 June 75 to Barnum, n. 1; Saxon, 211–12; Wilson 1874, 66).

2 Barnum replied on 18 February (CU-MARK):

An endlessly inventive self-promoter and impresario of oddities, Barnum attracted even more attention from eccentrics than Clemens did himself. Since the summer of 1874, at Clemens’s request (apparently in a letter that has not been found), he had been sending him the “curious begging letters” he regularly received (Barnum to SLC, 31 July 74, 13 Aug 74, 27 Nov 74, CU-MARK). See 19 Feb 75 to Barnum.

3 The Hippodrome had opened in New York in April 1874. After a summer and fall tour to Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati, it returned to New York. In the spring of 1875 it again went on the road, traveling as far west as Kansas City. The show, however, “did not draw well outside major cities because country patrons were disappointed by the absence of clowns.” By November 1875 Barnum had become “hopelessly overextended,” and was forced to sell his show property at auction (Saxon, 251; Barnum 1889, 290–92, 305, 310–12).