1 The Wyoming Valley Hotel, “one of the best in the State, with ample accommodation for 250 guests,” was owned by Jasper Billings Stark (1823–82) and was located in a scenic valley known for its Revolutionary War associations (Appletons’ Hand-Book, 167; Kulp, 2:567). Over the next few weeks, Clemens used the hotel’s stationery at least three more times for letters from other places (31 Oct 71, 1 Nov 71, 9 Nov 71, all to OLC). But he was probably still in Wilkes-Barre when he hurriedly wrote the present letter before catching the train for Washington, about two hundred and seventy miles south.

2 Chapter 18 of Roughing It describes the crossing of an “alkali” desert about one hundred miles west of Salt Lake City. “It is apparent that the illustrators or the typesetters had lost part of the manuscript for this chapter, and that Bliss had asked Clemens to rewrite it, relying on what had survived. (Clemens’s suggestion that Bliss leave out the ‘whole chapter’ if the attempt to rewrite it failed shows that not all of it had been lost.) Despite his temptation to give up, Clemens soon did rewrite the text” (RI 1993, 122–25, 870).