To James Redpath
11 April 1874 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: MacMinn, UCCL 05322)

Apl. 11.

Dear Redpath:

You advised me wisely before—you must advise me again. You will know which is best—to publish a paragraph denying the soft impeachment, & word it so that it will travel—or bring a libel suit. The libel suit makes the wide publicity of the denial certain, but it might also cause an amount of newspaper mud to be flung at me that would make it a misfortune, in the end, rather than a help. How would it do to go for a blatant, characterless paper, & place the damages at three dollars, as being justly representing all the harm that such a paper is able to do a body? I think I’d enjoy that.1

Ys Ever

Mark.

[letter docketed:] boston lyceum [bureau. james redpath. apr 12 1874] [and] Twain Mark | Hartford | Ct | Apr. 11 1874

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

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1 Redpath’s reply does not survive, but in not bringing a libel suit Clemens may have followed Redpath’s counsel as well as his own better judgment.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS facsimile. The editors have not seen the MS, which was owned in 1987 by Strother MacMinn, who provided a photocopy to the Mark Twain Papers.

Previous publication: L6, 104–105; Henkels 1903, lot 634, excerpt; AAA 1924, lot 100, excerpt.

Provenance:The MS was offered for sale in 1903 as part of the collection of Harold Pierce, and again in 1924 as part of the collection of William F. Gable.

Emendations and textual notes:

bureau. james redpath. apr. 12 1874 • bur[eau] james redpath[] apr 12 18[7] [badly inked]