To Olivia L. Langdon
27 November 1869 • Boston, Mass.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00379)

Boston, Saturday.

Oh, you little rascal! I can’t keep the run of you to save me. You speak as if [your ]are going to Mrs. Brooks’s, but you don’t say precisely when, & so I don’t know just how to direct my letter. However, I will send it to 675 5th ave., & take the chances.1 It can’t matter greatly, if it fails to reach you, for I am only going to write a line to say I am well, & then go to bed.

Had a big house last night, as [usual, ]. Didn’t make a brilliant success otherwise, though.2 Good-bye little darling, will write tomorrow.

Sam.

[enclosures:]

black,

163 washington st., boston. 3

h. g. smith,

studio building,

boston.

Miss Olivia L. Langdon | 675 Fifth avenue | New York. [return address:] young’s hotel, court avenue, boston, mass. [postmarked:] [ boston mass. ] nov. [27 ]8.p.m. [docketed by OLL:] 149th

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Apparently upon her father’s departure for Elmira, Olivia was to move from the St. Nicholas Hotel to the home of Fidele Brooks, to await her mother. If Jervis Langdon in fact left as scheduled at the end of November, he soon returned to New York to be with his wife and daughter (see the next letter, n. 1).

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2 The site of this indifferent performance has not been identified.

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3 The following note was written in pencil across this imprint, possibly by photographer James Wallace Black: “Twain 12
N Y Some done Friday night.”

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS and enclosed photographs, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK). The photographs are reproduced in facsimile.

Previous publication: L3, 410–411; LLMT, 360, brief quotation without the enclosures.

Provenance:see Samossoud Collection, p. 586.

Emendations and textual notes:

your • [‘r’ partly formed]

usual, • [deletion implied]

boston mass. • [n a] ss. [badly inked]

27 • [27] [badly inked]