To Mary Mason Fairbanks
16 April 1873 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: CSmH, UCCL 00900)

Hartford, Apl. 16.

Dear Mother—

Laziness, [ ham ] obstructed by work, is my excuse.—not want of desire to write you, or lack of affection.1 [Every ] since I arrived from England, several months ago, Chas Dudley Warner & I have been belting away every day on a partnership novel. I have worked 6 days a week—good full days—& laid myself up, once. Have written many chapters twice, & some of them three times—have thrown away 300 clean pages of MS. & still there’s havoc to be made when I enter on the final polishing. Warner has been more fortunate—he won’t lose 50 pages.

[ S ] Three more chapters will end the book. We I laid out the plan of the boss chapter, the climax chapter, yesterday, & Warner will write it up to-day; I wrote it up yesterday, & shall work & trim & polish at it to-day—& to-night ‸we shall read, &‸ the man who has written it best is all right—the other man’s MS. will be torn up. If neither succeeds, we’ll both write the chapter over again.

Every night for many weeks, Livy & Susie Warner have collected in my study to hear Warner & me read our day’s work; & they have done a power of criticising, but have always been anxious to be on hand at the reading & find out what has been happening to the dramatis personae since the previous evening. They both pleaded so long & vigorously for Warner’s heroine, that yesterday Warner agreed to spare her life & let her marry—he meant to kill her. I killed my heroine as dead as a mackerel yesterday (but Livy don’t know it yet). Warner may or may not kill her to-day (this is in the “boss” chapter.) We shall see. I wish you had been here all this time to criticise. The book will issue e in the end of summer—here & in England spasmodically—I tote over a copy of the MS May 17.2

I’m not half done [with] this letter, but I have an itching desire to get back to my chapter & shake up my heroine’s remains. We’re all well. Livy will write.

Affectionately
Yr Son

Samℓ.

P. S.—(Night.) My climax chapter is the one accepted by Livy & Susie, & so my heroine, Laura, remains dead.

I have also written another chapter, in which I have brought Clay Hawkins home from California & the Chinchas, made Washington tear up the tax bill, & started him & Col. Sellers home, to appear no more in the book. Do you think that was best? Or would it have been better to let Sellers go over into Pennsylvania, first, & give Philip a lift with his mining troubles? He could have passed through Philadelphia, then, & had a chance to see Ruth (poor Ruth!) & the Boltons.3

Sam

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 In an undated letter postmarked 14 April, Fairbanks had chided the Clemenses for their failure to write (CU-MARK):

UCLC31862

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2 In chapter 60 of The Gilded Age Laura is reported to have turned “to that final resort of the disappointed of her sex, the lecture platform,” only to suffer humiliation on her first appearance. She is found dead a few days later from “heart disease” (SLC 1873–74, 547, 551). Clemens expected the English edition to issue “simultaneously” rather than “spasmodically.”

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3 Clay Hawkins, Washington Hawkins, and Colonel Sellers all resolve their affairs and go home in chapter 61. Ruth Bolton recovers from her serious illness and agrees to marry Philip Sterling, who has barely escaped financial ruin by discovering coal on her father’s land, in chapters 62 and 63.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino (CSmH, call no. HM 14280).

Previous publication: L5, 339–341; MTMF, 170–72; Davis 1977, 3, excerpt.

Provenance:see Huntington Library in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

ham • ham- |

Every • [sic]

S • [partly formed]