To Olivia L. Clemens
22 December 1873 • (2nd of 2) • London, England
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 11878)

Just wrote you a moment ago, Livy dear,

Dec. 22
Saml

Halloway House, Hastings,
Dec. 19, 1873.

My dear Mr Clemens,

Is there no chance of seeing you down here before you go? Anytime would do for us. Why not eat your Christmas Dinner with us? We are a merry party, & I don’t think you would find it very dull. The shortest notice of your coming, or no notice at all will suffice.

Tell me, please, when you think of returning: I want to ask you to take out a watch for a friend of mine, if it would not be troublesome to you.

I long to see the novel—yours and Warner’s: it is not out here yet. If you were living in London, or I in Hartford, I think we could make a good western play together. There are such elements in that book of yours! 2

All the best wishes of the season to you from us—

Yours most truly

George MacDonald.

Punch has frightened [us] as to your going away so soon. 3 I want you to take two bits of crockery for me to the dear Wife.

Yrs truly

Louisa McD.

Explanatory Notes

Editorial Signs

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1 This note to Olivia was probably not enclosed with the previous letter, which was in itself sufficiently long to incur a thirteen-cent postage-due fee.

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2 The British edition of The Gilded Age was published on 22 December, one day before the American edition (“Mark Twain and Charles Warner,” London Morning Post, 22 Dec 73, 8; “Brief Mention,” Hartford Courant, 20 Dec 73, 2; American Publishing Company to George Routledge, 12 Dec 73, Agreement Book A–K:183, Routledge). MacDonald’s proposed collaboration on a “western play,” to be based on Roughing It, was never realized.

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3 See 13 and 15 Dec 73 to OLC, n. 9.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, on the back of George and Louisa MacDonald to SLC, 19 Dec 73 ( UCLC 31912), Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).

Previous publication: L5, 531–32.

Provenance:see Mark Twain Papers in Description of Provenance.