To Joseph L. Blamire
21 July 1872 • New Saybrook, Conn.
(MS: ViU, UCCL 00772)

Fenwick Hall,
Saybrook, Conn,
21st.

Dr Sir:

I snatched this off yesterday when I got your letter; & I made it as brief as possible—as being in better taste than [either ] a long introduction to so reserved & dignified a people as the English. Tell me if you think it will do. Make any suggestions that strike you. By the way: Suppose we destroy that other introduction—it is not [ in ] at all in good taste.1

Please send those books & papers2 here—shall be here all summer. Too hot in Hartford.

I have declined a proposition to lecture a month for $10,000, & shall spend my winter either in the rural part of England or in Cuba & Florida—the latter most likely.3

Yrs

Clemens.

[enclosure 1:]

‸Please use this if it be possible—
do try hard, anyway.

Tear up the other. S. L. C.‸

Preface to the English Edition.

At the request of Messrs. George Routledge & Sons, I have made a patient & conscientious revision of this book for [republication ] in England, & I feel satisfied that I have eliminated & have weeded out of it ‸nearly, if not quite, all of‸ the most palpable & inexcusable of its blemishes. At the same time I have wrought into almost every chapter additions which seemed to me judicious cannot fail to augment the attractions of the book, or or diminish them. I have not done my best to make this revised volume acceptable to the reader; & so, since I am as other men are, it would gratify me indeed to win his good opinion.

Respectfully,

The Author.

Hartford, U.S., July 1872.

[enclosure 2:]

Substitute ‸for this‸ enclosed. for

Preface to the English [ Edition ]

Messrs George Routledge and Sons pay me copyright on my books. The moral grandeur of this thing cannot be [ overestimated ] in an age like ours, when even the sublimest natures betray the taint of earth, and the noblest and the purest among us will steal.

This firm is truly an abnormal firm. If there is another in foreign parts with similar instincts I have not had personal dealings with it.

My appreciation of the moral singularity I am lauding is attested by the fact that at the request of this publishing House I have wrought diligently, here in oppressive [midsummer ], until I have accomplished a thorough revision and correction of this book for republication in England, in defiance of the opinion of the great and wise historian Josephus, that “during the enervating season of summer, all persons so delicately constituted as authors and preachers ought to refrain from arduous employments of any kind and do nothing but worship nature, breathe the pure atmosphere of woods and mountains, and fool around.”

Mark Twain

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

Click to add citation to My Citations.

1 On 18 or 19 July, after receiving and then forwarding the second preface for the English edition of Innocents, Blamire seems to have recognized that the two prefaces undercut each other. He evidently sent Clemens a secretarial copy of the first, urging him to reconsider it. This letter shows that Clemens did exactly that. He enclosed a new, shorter version of his first preface, together with the secretarial copy—now canceled—and an instruction to tear up the original, already in London. Two days later Blamire sent the Routledges the revised preface and Clemens’s covering letter:

416 broome st., new york, July 23 187 2

Per S.S. “Nebraska”
July 24/72

Messrs G. R. & Sons
London

Dr. Sirs

Herewith please find Mark Twain’s preface for one of the Vols. of Innocents also his letter to me.

Duplicates will be sent by Thursday’s boat with my letter, & I have no doubt will reach you as early as (or before) this original. (ViU)

The Nebraska departed from New York on Wednesday, 24 July, and arrived at Queenstown early on 5 August. “Thursday’s boat” was the City of Bristol, which arrived only three hours after the Nebraska. The Routledges proceeded with the typesetting and printing of the first volume, The Innocents Abroad, which was completed by 24 August (more than three weeks after the second volume) and contained this revised preface (“Shipping Intelligence,” New York Tribune, 6 Aug 72 and 7 Aug 72, 3; Routledge Ledger Book 4:632, Routledge; SLC 1872).

Click to add citation to My Citations.

2 Unidentified.

Click to add citation to My Citations.

3 Blamire replied to this remark in a letter of 26 July:

Certainly I must admit that so far as the Climate is concerned it will be pleasanter for you in winter either in Cuba or Florida, but if you do not wish to tempt the English Climate in winter I do hope you will find it convenient to spend next summer (or a greater part thereof in England); if so I think I can safely promise you on behalf of Messrs Routledge—Father & three Sons—a real, genuine, hearty welcome—such as will make you feel (during the time that you are in London at least) at home with them & all around you. Will you do me the favor to allow me to mention in one of my early letters to them that they may expect you; I feel sure they wd be pleased to see you at any time of the year but it wd be pleasanter for you in summer & they wd also have more opportunity of being with you. (CU-MARK)

Blamire wrote again on 6 August, by which time Clemens may have already made his decision:

I cannot resist the temptation of saying that I think a Book on Great Britain wd be ever so much more interesting than one on Cuba at present; besides, would you feel like trusting yr self there just now? Suppose they nabbed you & shut you up like they did Howard, that wd not be satisfactory to you or to yrs truly. (CU-MARK)

Blamire alluded to the case of Dr. John E. Howard (or Houard), an American-born resident of Cuba who had been arrested and court-martialed by Spanish authorities for aiding the insurgents. Howard was “sentenced to eight years hard labor in a chain-gang, and the confiscation of all his property,” and was transported to Spain in chains in March 1872 (“Howard or Houard,” New York Times, 2 Apr 72, 5). Howard was eventually pardoned and returned to New York in late August 1872. By 7 August Clemens had decided on the English trip (“The War in Cuba,” New York Times, 24 Mar 72, 1; “Dr. Houard’s Sufferings,” New York Tribune, 22 Aug 72, 3; 7 Aug 72 to Bliss).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Clifton Waller Barrett Library, Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville (ViU), is copy-text for the letter and the two enclosures.

Previous publication: L5, 128–131; Sotheby 1950, lot 186, brief quotation from letter; University of Virginia, 71, first enclosure only; Welland, 33–34, brief quotation from letter, and texts of both enclosures.

Provenance:The letter, the property of Frances H. S. Stallybrass (see the commentary for 21 June 72 to Blamire), was offered for sale in 1950 by Sotheby’s in London (Sotheby 1950, lot 186). It is not clear whether the enclosures were included in that sale. Information from two unidentified catalogs, now with the MSS at ViU, suggests that Clifton Waller Barrett purchased the letter and the enclosures separately at two later sales. He deposited them at ViU on 16 April 1960.

Emendations and textual notes:

either • [sic]

in • [‘n’ partly formed]

republication • re-|publication

Edition • []n [torn]

overestimated • overestimarted

midsummer • mid-|summer