To William Dean Howells
22 and 27 September 1875 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: MH-H, UCCL 01263)

Hartford, Sept. 22

My Dear Howells: 1

I’m not going to lecture this year, after all. I’ve subterfuged myself out of it. I can not lecture. I loathe it. But we are coming to see you [by &] by, anyway.

{[ 28th ] ‸ 27th ‸} I told you ‸Bliss‸ to send you advance sheets of my Sketch volume—which I suppose he has done. The book will be published in a week or ten days. I saw the first copy yesterday—& about the first thing I ran across was an extract from “Hospital Days” (page 199) —an entirely gratuitous addition by Mr. Bliss to neatly fill out a page. I have ordered it out, instanter.2

Lord, what colds my wife & I have got!

[bottom one-fourth of page cut away] 3

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Clemens answered the following letter (CU-MARK), which replied to his of 18 September:

UCLC32209

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For the “Lexington Centennial,” see 18 Apr 75 to OLC, n. 1.

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2 The “extract” appeared on page 299 (not 199) of Mark Twain’s Sketches, New and Old. Entitled “From ‘Hospital Days,’” it was in fact taken from Jane Stuart Wolsey’s Hospital Days (Wolsey, 77). Clemens transcribed it from that book for some undiscovered purpose, noting the author’s name at the top of the page and then crossing it out (CtY-BR; ET&S1, 633 n. 203, incorrectly states that Clemens copied Wolsey’s sketch for inclusion in a “Cyclopedia of Humor,” but he was not planning such a work at this time). He may have inadvertently included his transcription in the printer’s copy he submitted to Bliss for Sketches, New and Old. For an unconvincing suggestion that Wolsey’s sketch actually copied Clemens, see Brownell 1943 [bib01027], 1943 [bib13385]; and MTHL, 2:863–64 (which misidentifies a table of contents that Clemens marked up for a late edition of Sketches, New and Old as “proof sheets”). For the outcome of Clemens’s protest, see 5 Nov 75 to Bliss, n. 7.

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3 Probably only Clemens’s complimentary close and signature are missing from the letter, which is on the front and back pages of a folder whose inside pages are blank.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Houghton Library, Harvard University (MH-H, shelf mark bMS Am 1784 [98]).

Previous publication: L6, 541–42; MTHL, 1:103.

Provenance:see Howells Letters in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

by & • by by & [corrected miswriting]

28th ‸ 27th ‸ • 287th