To James Redpath
28 January 1876 • Hartford, Conn.
(Typed transcription by or for Albert Bigelow Paine, CU-MARK, and Bangs and Company catalog, 24 January 1902, lot 82, UCCL 09883)
[Jan. 28.
Dear Redpath,]
Could you quietly jam this item into print somewhere without telling where you [get the information?]
[“Mark] Twain is writing a five-act drama, the scene of which is laid partly in San [Francisco,] [&] partly in the Nevada [silver mines]. The chief character in the piece is peculiarly [American.”]1
I have a reason for wanting to [set] this item [afloat].2
[I am still dragging along. Sometimes I think I am nearly well [&] then again I [find] I ain’t.] So the precious days slide along [&] are lost. My book lies [idle,3—]but I am building it [&] the play [too,] in my own [mind, though I want to talk with Mackay by & by, about doing the actual work of dramatization.,4
Do stop here with me every time you pass through—will you?
Yours ever,]
Mark.
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
An incomplete text of this letter, drawn solely from the Bangs auction catalog (also used here), was published mistakenly as “25 February 1874? to Unidentified” in Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 6 (L6, 51). A more complete source (still not the original) given to the Mark Twain Papers in 2003 showed the actual date and identified the addressee as James Redpath, the journalist and social reformer who had founded the Boston Lyceum Bureau in 1868 (20 Apr 1869 to Redpath, L3, 199 n. 1). Clemens was not in fact “writing a five-act drama” but only planning one, to be written for the stage by another hand. The play in question has not been further identified. Sometime in the first half of 1876 Clemens sent a scenario for a drama to novelist and playwright Charles Reade; in August he received this reply (CU-MARK): 2 Albert Terrace Knightsbridge Aug 6 My dear Sir, I beg to acknowledge yours detailing plot. It is full of Brains. but impossible on the stage. and not popular. The public want to see the plain realities. of life. reflected on the boards. Actors acting actors is a bad card. But in a story, you would have more scope and could carry out your idea, which is new, and true, and very ingenious. Take a ream of paper and dont waste refinements and delicate nuances on actors. Yours sincerely Reade Should you have ever so dramatic a subject I could hardly advise you to share it with me. Managers here are illiterate beasts. They never read a book, and I dont think there is one of them that would read a play, of mine, or recommended by me. They stick to a little ro[u]nd of scribblers who drink grog with them, or write criticism as they call it in the journals It was the misreading of the first sentence of Reade's letter (“detecting” for “detailing”) that led Franklin Rogers to mistakenly conclude that Clemens sent Reade a “plot outline” for Cap'n Simon Wheeler, The Amateur Detective. A Light Tragedy, the play he wrote in a few weeks in the summer of 1877 (S&B, 216-17; SLC 1877f).
London
2Redpath complied with Clemens's request; this squib (or variations on it) appeared in papers nationwide in February 1876.
The “idle” book probably was the unidentified work Clemens had mentioned to Howells in late 1875 (L6: 4 Nov 1875, 582, 585 n. 9; 23 Nov 1875, 595).
Probably actor-playwright James Morrison Steele MacKaye (1842-94). As a lecturer, MacKaye was managed by Redpath's Lyceum Bureau (Lyceum 1875, 3).
Source text(s):| Tr | Typed transcription by or for Albert Bigelow Paine, CU-MARK; ‘Jan. . . . Mark.’ |
| P | Bangs and Company, 24 January 1902, lot 82: ‘Could you . . . item afloat.’; ‘So the . . . my own mind’; ‘Mark.’ |
Previous publication:
25 Feb 1874? to Unidentified, L6, 51, partial publication; the addressee and date were not known until the Paine transcript was donated to CU-MARK.
Provenance:
See Paine Transcripts in Description of Provenance. The letter was offered for sale in 1902 by Bangs and Company, New York.
Emendations, adopted readings, and textual notes:
All variants between the source texts are reported here. The readings identified by the siglum ‘MTP’ are editorial emendations of the source readings made because none is deemed correct by itself.
Jan. . . . Redpath, (Tr) • [date and greeting not in] (P)
get the information? (Tr) • got your information. (P)
“Mark (P) • ‸~ (Tr)
Francisco, (Tr) • ~‸ (P)
& (MTP) • and (Tr, P)
silver mines (Tr) • Silver Mines (P)
American.” (P) • ~.‸ (Tr)
set (P) • get (Tr)
afloat (Tr) • afleat (P)
I am still . . . ain’t. (Tr) • [passage not in; replaced by ellipsis asterisks] (P)
& (MTP) • and (Tr)
find (MTP) • fi | find (Tr)
& (MTP) • and (Tr, P)
idle,— (P) • ~— (Tr)
& (MTP) • and (Tr, P)
too, (P) • ~‸ (Tr)
mind, . . . ever, (Tr) • mind,” etc. (P)
