Photographs and Manuscript Facsimiles, 1867–1868
Reproduced here are thirty-eight contemporary images—photographs (including many original cartes de visite), engravings, a porcelain-type, a watercolor miniature, and an oil painting—chiefly of Clemens’s friends, associates, and traveling companions during the period of these letters. Many of these images have not been published before.
Immediately following these documents is a representative selection of seven letters in Clemens’s holograph, reproduced in photofacsimile. We provide these documents partly for their inherent interest, and partly to afford the reader a chance to see for himself what details of the manuscript the transcription includes, as well as what it omits. Because of the imperfect nature of the facsimiles, close comparison with the transcription may turn up apparent discrepancies between the two.
Jane Lampton Clemens, probably late 1850s. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).
Charles Henry Webb, mid-1870s. Webb inscribed the back on 21 March 1877 to Charles Warren Stoddard. The Bancroft Library (CU-BANC).
Charles Warren Stoddard, 1869. The Bancroft Library (CU-BANC).
Henry Ward Beecher, 1868, engraving (Beecher 1868, frontispiece).
John McComb, 1880. The Bancroft Library (CU-BANC).
Senator William M. Stewart, 1865. The Bancroft Library (CU-BANC).
John Russell Young, 1880. The Bancroft Library (CU-BANC).
The departure of the Quaker City from New York on 8 June 1867 (Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 29 June 67, 233).
Mary Mason Fairbanks, 1867 or 1868. From an original carte de visite formerly owned by her granddaughter, Harriet F. Bolles. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).
Solon L. and Emily A. Severance, ?1867. From an original photograph formerly owned by their daughter, Julia Severance Millikin. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).
Elisha Bliss, Jr., probably 1870s. Mark Twain Memorial, Hartford, Connecticut (CtHMTH).
Joseph H. Twichell, probably 1860s. Mark Twain Memorial, Hartford, Connecticut (CtHMTH).
Olivia L. Langdon, 1864. Watercolor by Samuel R. Fanshaw (1814–88). Clemens said in 1906 that he first saw Olivia “in the form of an ivory miniature” on the Quaker City. No painting on ivory survives, but this miniature portrait on cardboard was in Clemens’s possession at the time of his death. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).
Porcelaintype of Olivia Langdon, 1866 or 1867. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).
Porcelaintype of Olivia Langdon, 1868. Ida Langdon, Charles Langdon’s daughter, mistakenly believed this to be the image that Clemens saw on board the Quaker City; Paine likewise misidentified it (MTB, facing 1:338). Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK); donated in 1948 by Jervis Langdon, Jr. (Charles’s grandson).
Jervis Langdon, ?1869. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).
Olivia Lewis Langdon, ?1869. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).
Charles Jervis Langdon, probably 1867. Mark Twain Memorial, Hartford, Connecticut (CtHMTH).
Susan Langdon Crane, probably late 1850s. Mark Twain Memorial, Hartford, Connecticut (CtHMTH).
Theodore Crane, ?1880. Mark Twain Memorial, Hartford, Connecticut (CtHMTH).
William Chauncey Bartlett, probably late 1860s. The Bancroft Library (CU-BANC).
John Neely Johnson as governor of California (1856–58), oil painting ca. 1875 by Francis M. Pebbles (1839–1928), probably from a photograph. California Department of General Services, Sacramento.
Horatio Stebbins, probably mid-1870s. The Bancroft Library (CU-BANC).
Robert Bunker Swain, ?1869. The Bancroft Library (CU-BANC).
Charles Wadsworth, 1863, engraving (North Pacific Review 2 [May 1863]: facing 273). The Bancroft Library (CU-BANC).
Samuel Williams, ?1869. The Bancroft Library (CU-BANC).
Clemens to Jane Lampton Clemens and family, 19 April 1867, New York, N.Y. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK). The letter is written on both sides of a single leaf. Transcribed on p. 27.
Manuscript page 2, to Jane Lampton Clemens and family, 19 April 1867. Verso.
Clemens to Charles Warren Stoddard, 23 April 1867, New York, N.Y. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK). The four-page letter is written on both sides of two leaves of a folded sheet. Transcribed on pp. 29–30.
Manuscript page 2, to Charles Warren Stoddard, 23 April 1867. Verso of the first leaf.
Manuscript page 3, to Charles Warren Stoddard, 23 April 1867. Recto of the second leaf.
Manuscript page 4, to Charles Warren Stoddard, 23 April 1867. Verso of the second leaf.
Clemens to William Bowen, 7 June 1867, New York, N.Y. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin (TxU). Only two of the four original manuscript pages of this letter survive; they are written on the rectos of two leaves numbered 3 and 4. The letter is transcribed on p. 54, where the text of the missing pages, as well as of the damaged portions of the surviving pages, has been recovered from a complete TS (see the textual commentary).
Manuscript page 4, to William Bowen, 7 June 1867. Recto of the second leaf.
Clemens to Elisha Bliss, Jr., 2 December 1867, Washington, D.C. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK). The letter is written on the first three pages of a folded sheet cut into two leaves. Transcribed on pp. 119–20.
Manuscript page 2, to Elisha Bliss, Jr., 2 December 1867. Verso of the first leaf.
Manuscript page 3, to Elisha Bliss, Jr., 2 December 1867. Recto of the second leaf.
Clemens to Mary Mason Fairbanks, 2 December 1867, Washington, D.C. Special Collections Department (Clemens 6314-q), Clifton Waller Barrett Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville (ViU). The letter is written on the first six pages of two folded sheets cut into four leaves (Clemens used the fourth leaf for 2 Dec 67 to Fuller). Only the fifth page is numbered. Transcribed on pp. 121–23.
Manuscript page 2, to Mary Mason Fairbanks, 2 December 1867. Verso of the first leaf.
Manuscript page 3, to Mary Mason Fairbanks, 2 December 1867. Recto of the second leaf.
Manuscript page 4, to Mary Mason Fairbanks, 2 December 1867. Verso of the second leaf.
Manuscript page 5, to Mary Mason Fairbanks, 2 December 1867. Recto of the third leaf.
Manuscript page 6, to Mary Mason Fairbanks, 2 December 1867. Verso of the third leaf.
Clemens to Mary Mason Fairbanks, 3 August 1868, New York, N.Y. Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. (CSmH). Pages 1 and 2 of this three-page letter are written on the first and fourth sides of a single folded sheet; page 3 is written across sides two and three on the inside. The letter was damaged when the signature on page 3 was cut away. Transcribed on pp. 237–38.
Manuscript page 3, whence the signature was removed, to Mary Mason Fairbanks, 3 August 1868.
Clemens to Olivia L. Langdon, 30 October 1868, Hartford, Conn. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK). The letter is written on nine leaves torn from folded sheets. The first eight leaves have writing on the rectos only. Clemens originally wrote on the recto only of the ninth leaf as well, but added two postscripts on its verso. Transcribed on pp. 271–75.
Manuscript page 2, to Olivia L. Langdon, 30 October 1868. Recto of the second leaf.
Manuscript page 3, to Olivia L. Langdon, 30 October 1868. Recto of the third leaf.
Manuscript page 4, to Olivia L. Langdon, 30 October 1868. Recto of the fourth leaf.
Manuscript page 5, to Olivia L. Langdon, 30 October 1868. Recto of the fifth leaf.
Manuscript page 6, to Olivia L. Langdon, 30 October 1868. Recto of the sixth leaf.
Manuscript page 7, to Olivia L. Langdon, 30 October 1868. Recto of the seventh leaf.
Manuscript page 8, to Olivia L. Langdon, 30 October 1868. Recto of the eighth leaf.
Manuscript page 9, to Olivia L. Langdon, 30 October 1868. Recto of the ninth leaf.
Manuscript page 10, to Olivia L. Langdon, 30 October 1868. Verso of the ninth leaf, inscribed after the letter was folded for mailing.
The envelope, to Olivia L. Langdon, 30 October 1868. Although Clemens wrote this letter in Hartford, the front of the envelope was postmarked in New Haven, where he mailed it later that same day. The back of the envelope bears Olivia’s contemporary endorsement (“5th”) as well as Clara Clemens’s later annotation, “Read.”
