Mark Twain Project :: Letters :: : an electronic text

To Scribner, Welford and Armstrong
6–8 June 1874 • Elmira, N.Y.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 11898)

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english publishers’ depot. commission booksellers and importers.

agents for “bohn’s libraries,” the oxford university press, and the

leading publishing houses of england and scotland.

right manicule special orders despatched by every steamer left manicule .

new york, June 5th 187 4

m r Mark Twain Care J. Langdon & Co

Elmira N.Y

bought of scribner, welford & armstrong, 654 broadway, (between

bleecker and bond st.) l. w. bangs, manager.

sent per Ex

terms—net cash, payable with exchange on n. y. right manicule not responsible for

goods sent out to be packed. claims for deductions must be made within

one week after receipt of goods.

1 Rule’s Inquisition2v1050[$8.40 ] 1

“Whittaker’s Reference Catalogue” is not yet ready, we will forward when published. 2

All right. Many thanks.

Ys Truly

Mark Twain

[invoice docketed:] receiv’d payment scribner, welford & armstrong. jun 9 1874 [and] ✓ [and] [O Illead]3

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 William Harris Rule’s two-volume History of the Inquisition: From Its Establishment in the Twelfth Century to Its Extinction in the Nineteenth (London: Hamilton, Adams and Co.; New York: Scribner, Welford and Company, 1874). Clemens apparently received a 20 percent discount on its price.

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2 A Reference Catalogue of Current Literature Containing the Full Titles of Books Now in Print and On Sale, with the Prices at Which They May Be Obtained of All Booksellers, published in London by Joseph Whitaker. Its prefatory “Advertisement,” dated 16 June 1874, reported that publication of the “volume of three thousand pages, containing the full titles of perhaps fifty thousand books,” the first in an annual series, had been delayed “a month or six weeks” so that a partial index could be prepared (viii).

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3This signature, written across the rubber-stamped docket, is not entirely construable; the present reading is therefore at best an approximation. Scribner, Welford and Armstrong returned the docketed invoice to Clemens as his paid receipt. The establishment was one of three sister firms with offices at 654 Broadway. The others were Scribner, Armstrong and Company, publishers and booksellers, and Scribner and Company, publishers of Scribner’s Monthly (Wilson 1874, 1180).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).

glyph Previous publication: L6, 154–155.

glyph Provenance:see Mark Twain Papers in Description of Provenance.

glyph Emendations and textual notes:

$8.40 • $8|40 [written with a ledger line separating the dollars and cents]

O Illead • [scrawled; doubtful]