To William Dean Howells
11 July 1877 • Elmira, N.Y.
(MS: NN-BGC, UCCL 02512)

Elmira
Wednesday PM.

My Dear Howells:

It’s finished. I was misled by hurried mis-paging. There were ten pages of notes, & over 300 pages of MS when the play was done. Did it in 42 hours, by the clock; 40 pages of the Atlantic—but then of course it’s very “fat.” Those are the figures, but I don’t believe them myself, because the thing’s impossible.

But let that pass. All day long, & every day, since I finished (in the rough), I have been diligently, altering, amending, re-writing, cutting down. I finished finally to-day. Can’t think of anything else in the way of an improvement. I thought I would stick to it while the interest was hot—& I am mighty glad I did. A week from now it will be frozen—then, revising would be drudgery. (You see I learned something from the fatal blunder of putting Ah Sin aside before it was finished.)1

She’s all right, now. She reads in 2 hours & 20 minutes & will play not longer than [2¾. ] ‸hours.‸ Nineteen characters; 3 acts; (I doubled one.) (I redu (I bunched 2 into 1.)

To-morrow I will draw up an exhaustive synopsis to insert in the printed title-page for coypyrighting, & then on Friday I go or Saturday I go to New York to remain a week or ten days & lay for an actor. Wish you could run down there & have a holiday. ’Twould be fun.2

My wife won’t ‸have‸ bBalaam Ass; therefore I call the piece “Cap’n Simon Wheeler, The Amateur Detective.”3

Yrs

Mark.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1Clemens:s collaboration with Bret Harte on Ah Sin continued into the first months of 1877. The independent revisions Clemens made in the play at that time were a contributing factor in the breakup of his friendship with Harte (27 Feb 1877 to PAM, n. 3). Shortly before Ah Sin’s New York opening on 31 July Clemens was still making changes, contentedly expunging Harte’s contributions, and he suggested further alterations even after the debut (3 Aug 1877 to Daly and 3 Aug 1877 to Howells).

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2Clemens went to New York on Saturday, 14 July, visited Hartford on 17 and 18 July, and was back in New York from 19 July to 2 August. It was probably during his second stay that he asked several people, including at least two actors, to read the play (see 6 Aug 1877 to Conway, n. 2).

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3There is no indication that Clemens seriously considered the title “Balaam Ass.” He applied for copyright on Cap’n Simon Wheeler, The Amateur Detective on 18 July (see his letter of that date to Ainsworth Spofford).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, NN-BGC.

Previous publication:

MTL, 1:301–2; MTHL, 1:188–89.

Provenance:

See Howells Letters in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

2¾. • [deletion implied]