Photographs and Manuscript Facsimiles, 1870–1871
Reproduced here are twenty-five contemporary images, many of them never before published, of Samuel and Olivia Clemens’s families, friends, associates, and places of residence during the period of these letters. Immediately following these documents is Clemens’s holograph “scrap letter” of 11 June 1871 to Jane Lampton Clemens, reproduced in photofacsimile. We provide this facsimile partly for its inherent interest, and partly to afford readers a chance to see for themselves what details of the manuscript the transcription includes, as well as what it omits. Because of the difficulties in rendering into type a letter designed to be difficult to read, close comparison with the transcription may turn up apparent discrepancies between the two.
George Alfred Townsend, Clemens, and David Gray, Washington, D.C., 7 February 1871. Photographed at Mathew Brady’s galleries. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).
Wedding certificate of Samuel L. Clemens and Olivia L. Langdon, signed by ministers Thomas K. Beecher and Joseph H. Twichell and by witnesses Jervis and Olivia Langdon, Fidele A. Brooks, Theodore W. and Susan L. Crane, Edward P. and Lottie Adams, Mary M. Fairbanks, and Talmage E. and Anna L. (Marsh) Brown, on 2 February 1870. The stamp was initialed and dated by Beecher. Collection of Robert T. Slotta.
House at 472 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, New York, probably late 1870s or 1880s. Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society (NBuHi).
Samuel L. Clemens, 1870, photographer unidentified. Huntington Library, San Marino, California (CSmH). A photograph from this sitting served as the model for the engraving in the August 1870 Galaxy; see p. 416.
Langdon Clemens, 1871. Photograph by John H. Whitley, Elmira. Mark Twain House, Hartford, Connecticut (CtHMTH).
Eunice Ford, 1860s. Huntington Library, San Marino, California (CSmH).
Langdon Clemens, 1871. Mark Twain Archives, Center for Mark Twain Studies at Quarry Farm, Elmira College (NElmC).
Emma Nye, c. 1870. Mark Twain Archives, Center for Mark Twain Studies at Quarry Farm, Elmira College (NElmC).
Rachel Gleason, 1870s. Mark Twain Archives, Center for Mark Twain Studies at Quarry Farm, Elmira College (NElmC).
Elmira Water Cure, 1860 (Callisto 1 [March–April 1860]: no page).
Donn Piatt, c. 1870. Photograph by Mathew Brady or associate. Library of Congress (DLC).
Horace Greeley, 1860s or 1870s. Library of Congress (DLC).
Benjamin P. Shillaber, early 1860s. Boston Athenaeum (MBAt).
John Hay, 1871. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).
Samuel S. Cox, 1870s? Photograph by Mathew Brady or associate. Library of Congress (DLC).
Thomas Nast, 1871 (Harper’s Weekly 25 [26 August 1871]: 804).
Thomas Bailey Aldrich, 1868 (Greenslet, facing page 92).
William Bowen, 1870s. Courtesy of Royden Burwell Bowen, Jr., and William G. Bowen.
Olive Logan, 1870s? From a Mathew Brady photograph. Library of Congress (DLC).
Kate Field, 1865 (Whiting, 147).
Frank Fuller, 1860s. The James S. Copley Library (CLjC).
Thomas Fitch, 1870. Engraved by Charles Bryan Hall. Boston Athenaeum (MBAt).
James T. Fields, c. 1870 (Howells 1900, facing page 42).
Adolph Sutro, 1869, posing with “the first pick with which he struck the first blow on the Sutro Tunnel.” Composite shot, London. Nevada Historical Society, Reno (NvHi).
John and Isabella Hooker’s house, Nook Farm, Hartford, c. 1870. Rented by the Clemenses in October 1871. From a stereopticon photograph by Prescott and White. Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Hartford, Connecticut (CtHSD).
Clemens to Jane Lampton Clemens, 11 June 1871, Elmira, N.Y. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK). Manuscript scraps 1, 2, 3, and 4. Recto and verso. The letter, which is transcribed on pp. 403–5, is written on nine scraps, both sides of which are reproduced here. The apparent ink marks around the edges of some of the scraps were made not by Clemens but by Chester L. Davis, Sr., in 1978.
Manuscript scraps 5, 6, and 7, to Jane Lampton Clemens, 11 June 1871. Recto and verso.
Manuscript scraps 8 and 9, to Jane Lampton Clemens, 11 June 1871. Recto and verso.
The envelope, addressed to Jane Lampton Clemens and postmarked 12 June. Jane Lampton Clemens added the year and description; the page references in the lower left corner were written by Chester L. Davis, Sr. The back flap of the envelope bears Olivia L. Langdon’s monogram.
