To
Charles Follen Adams
20 December 1877 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS, correspondence card, in pencil: ViU, UCCL 01513)
Hartford, Thursday AM
slcChas F Adams Esq
Dr Sir: [I] thank you very much for your courtesy. Several oth of the pieces are familiar to me, & I shall be glad to make the acquaintance of the rest.1
Ys Truly
S. L. Clemens
Chas. F. Adams, Esq | 105 Arch st | Boston [in upper left corner:] Personal | [flourish] [return address:] if not delivered within 10 days, to be returned to [postmarked:] hartford conn. dec 20 6pm [docketed:] Mark Twain
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Charles Follen Adams (1842–1918) fought in the Civil War, and was wounded
and taken prisoner at Gettysburg. In 1872 he began to contribute humorous poems in a German or Pennsylvania Dutch dialect to periodicals. Clemens here responded
to a gift from Adams, announced in the following letter (CU-MARK): Adams enclosed his business card: “Adams & Cary, Importers and Manufacturers of
Real Hair Goods, Hair Dealers’ Supplies, Fancy Goods, Jewelry, Millinery
Ornaments, &c.” On the envelope of his letter, Clemens wrote, “Adams, the new
humorist.” The gift copy of Leedle Yawcob Strauss was still in Clemens’s library at his
death (Gribben 1980, 1:7). In his autobiography he included Adams among the
humorists “whose writings and sayings were once in everybody’s mouth but are now
heard of no more, and are no longer mentioned” (AutoMT2, 153, 534).
Source text(s):Previous publication:
MicroPUL, reel 1.
Provenance:
Deposited at ViU by Clifton Waller Barrett on 17 December 1963.
Emendations and textual notes:
I • I I [corrected miswriting]
