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5 January 1876 • Hartford, Conn.
(Transcript of postal card: Parke-Bernet, 3 November 1938, lot 121, UCCL 01295)
(SUPERSEDED)
All right. I’ve started them.1
I want you to come here again before you sail. I want you to take my new book to England, & have it published there by some one (according to your plan) before it is issued here, if you will be so good.2
Yrs
S. L. C.
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[us postal card. write the address on this side—the message on the other] | Moncure D. Conway, | Care of J. T. Fields, Esq | 148 Charles St | Boston. [postmarked:] hartford conn. jan 5 11am
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Conway had left his overshoes after his three-day stay
at the Clemens home at the end of December 1875 (see L6, 599–601). Fields was the author and retired Boston
publisher.
Sponsored by Hartford’s Unitarian Society,
Conway lectured at Allyn Hall on “Demonology, or the Natural History of the
Devil,” “Science and Religion in England,” and
“Oriental
Religions; Their Origin and Progress” on 18, 22, and
23 January, respectively, staying with the Clemenses while he was in
Hartford. The book Clemens wanted Conway to offer to an English publisher
was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the American edition of
which was in production at the American Publishing Company in Hartford.
For Conway’s own gloss of “Dissenters’
trouble,” see L6, 600–1. The famous diary that Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) began keeping
in shorthand in 1659 was first deciphered and published in part in 1825
(Hartford Courant:
“Amusements,” 17 Jan 76, 2; “The Devil:
Mr. Conway’s Lecture on Demonology,” 19 Jan 76, 1,
4; “Mr. Conway’s Lectures,” 24 Jan 76,
1; L6, 585–86; Pepys 1825).
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Previous publication:
Parke-Bernet, 2–3 November 1938, no. 59, lot 121, partial
publication; MicroPUL, reel 1.
Provenance:
The typed transcript in CU-MARK indicates that the MS was at one time in the Justin
Turner Collection.
Emendations and textual notes:
us postal card. write the address on this side—the message on the other • [fourteen words not in; adopted from 1 Jan 76 to Howells]