To Elisha Bliss, Jr.
28 October 1870 • Buffalo, N.Y.
(MS: NN-B, UCCL 00516)

Buf. Oct. 28.

Friend Bliss:

Please forward a copy of “Innocents” to my friend Mortim‸ore‸ er Thomson, “better known,” (as they have the thrice-infernal fashion of saying of me,) as “Q. K. Philander Doesticks, P.B.,”1

He has gone to his reward——I mean he has been promoted from literature to politics, & is now [storekeeper ]of a U. S. Bonded Warehouse2—& may be President of the United States, yet, for all we know, for there is no telling how these things will end.

Anyway, you send the book to him. The book will not obstruct his political advancement,—unless it makes him too virtuous. Of course you can use your pleasure about sending it yourself or ordering it through your N. Y. agency—but send it.3 His ‸Thomson’s‸ address is:

[ 42 ‸45‸ ]Water Street, New York.

Yrs

Clemens.

[letter docketed] [and] Mark Twain | Oct 28/70 | Author 4

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 On 21 October, journalist, satirist, and humorous lecturer Mortimer Neal Thomson (1831–75) had sent Clemens a lengthy appeal, which read in part:

When we met here in 186 whatever it was, 68 I believe, you told me you were going to go off in the Quaking City—you stated that if there was any book-matter in the journey, the ship, the people, or the heathen lands and the inhabitants thereof, you proposed to extract the same and build a book— You said also that I, even I should be favored with a copy of the said volume without money and without price and with the autograph of the Author put in in the appropriate places . . .

Very well—the book is built—the architecture is complete but nary a copy have I—not a cop-

Now Marcus, this is not fair—that book I want—that book I must have—and, do you think I am so wild, so insane as to go and pay money for a funny book, when I have made funny (?) books my own self! Not very much— (CU-MARK, in Lorch 1949, 447–48)

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2 Part of the “united states internal revenue, collector’s office, 32d district, n. y.” (envelope return address, Thomson to SLC, 21 Oct 70, CU-MARK).

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3 Bliss apparently sent Thomson an order on his New York agent—B. Schenck, otherwise unidentified, at 114 Broadway. After using it to redeem the book, Thomson thanked Clemens in a letter of 5 November, complaining facetiously that he had had to pay thirty cents shipping charges. He enclosed the “chirographic outrage your Publisher attempted to inflict on me as your genuine autograph,” pointing out that “they’ve put a ‘t’ in your name—just as many folks, including Sam’l Clemens, put a ‘p’ in my name.” The autograph was in Bliss’s hand (CU-MARK, in Lorch 1949, 449; “Advertisements,” Author’s Sketch Book 1 [Nov 70]: 3).

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4 Thomson’s warehouse address. He lived at 119 Dekalb Avenue, in Brooklyn (Wilson 1871, 1143).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations (NN-B).

Previous publication: L4, 215–216; AAA 1927, lot 99A, excerpt.

Provenance:W. T. H. Howe owned the MS until 1939; in 1940 Dr. Albert A. Berg bought the Howe Collection for NN (Cannon, 185–86).

Emendations and textual notes:

storekeeper • store-|keeper

42 ‸45‸ • [underscored twice]