To Francis E. Bliss
1 February 1869 • Jacksonville, Ill.
(MS: NN-B, UCCL 02446)

Jacksonville, Ill, Feb. 1.

Dear Frank—

I shall be in Elmira, New York, from Feb. 3 till Feb. 11. Send proofs there if you have any ready.1 I want to leave for California on a lecturing trip the middle of March.

I have now lectured thirty-five or forty times & am fagged out with travel. Have to begin again Feb. 12, though. ,& My last lecture will be March 16—won’t talk any after that, for anybody. 2

Yr friend

Saml. L. Clemens

[letter docketed:] author [and] Mark Twain | Feb 1/69 | Author

Explanatory Notes

Editorial Signs

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1 Clemens was answering a request (now lost) for an address to which proofs of his book, still tentatively called “The New Pilgrim’s Progress,” could be sent. He in fact saw no proofs until early March, when he reached Hartford.

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2 If he wrote this letter after his Jacksonville performance, Clemens had lectured thirty-four times since 17 November 1868. His tour did not end until 20 March, in Sharon, Pennsylvania (see Lecture Schedule, 1868–1870).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, New York City (NN-B).

Previous publication: L3, 84; MTB, 1:377, brief paraphrase; AAA/Anderson 1934, lot 123, brief excerpt; MTMF, 68, with omissions, and 87, brief excerpt.

Provenance:An Ayer transcription and a Brownell typescript of this letter are at WU; see Brownell Collection, pp. 581–82.