Chas F. Wingate Esq
Click to add citation to My Citations.
Buffalo, Mch. 31.
Dear Sir:1
I am grateful always for sincere & volunt‸ary‸ eer expressions of satisfaction with [the book], & therefore I am grateful for the pr knowledge that you & yours have derived pleasure from reading it. Mrs. Browning knew right well that one such note of private & voluntary commendation [ g ] is able to give an author more comfort than the patronizing [ crit ] speeches toleration, imbecile criticism toleration and awkward English of forty Nation critiques can take away.2
In return for the Nation notice (which I had not seen,) I enclose a notice written by the traveled & scholarly David Gray, of the Buffalo Courier. It is at least good English—a merit which the Nation notice lacks.3
Yrs Truly
Samℓ. L. Clemens.
}
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Click to add citation to My Citations. 1
Charles Frederick Wingate (1848–1909) was a New York
correspondent (“Carlfried”) of the Springfield
(Mass.) Republican.
It might better have been a thinner book, for there
is some dead wood in it, as there has to be in all books which are
sold by book-agents and are not to be bought in stores. The
rural-district reader likes to see that he has got his
money’s worth even more than he likes wood-engravings. At
least, such is the faith in Hartford; and no man ever saw a
book-agent with a small volume in his hand. (Nation 9:194–95; reprinted in Anderson and
Sanderson, 21–22) Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s observations on
“private & voluntary commendation” have
not been identified.
Click to add citation to My Citations. 2
The Nation’s 2 September 1869 review of
The Innocents Abroad was indeed patronizing.
The unidentified critic said, in part:
Click to add citation to My Citations. 3
Gray had spent most of 1865–68 traveling in Britain, Europe,
and the Holy Land, recording his observations in a series of fifty-eight
letters to the Buffalo Courier (reprinted in
Larned 1888, volume 2; see also Larned 1888, 1:100–128). His long
review of Innocents appeared in the Courier on 19 March 1870, nearly eight months
after the book’s publication. A clipping of the review
survives in the Mark Twain Papers, and the full text is reprinted in
Enclosure with
31 March 1870 to Charles F. Wingate.
Click to add citation to My Citations. 4
Wingate lived at this address with his parents (Wilson 1869, 1193).
Source text(s):MS, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations,
New York City (NN).
Previous publication:
L4, 102–103.
Provenance:R. R. Bowker Collection.
Emendations and textual notes:
the book • the th book | book [‘book’ rewritten for clarity]
g • [partly formed]
crit • crit‐ |
200 210 • 2010
31 30th • 310th
