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

To Olivia L. Clemens
20 August 1872 • New York, N.Y.
(MS: Davis, Jr., and CU-MARK, UCCL 00796)

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Dan Slotes, 20th PM.1

Livy darling, my hands are still full of business, but I have a few minutes respite just now. It just occurs to me—how could you sleep on the shelf they call a berth, in a steamer? The thing is impossible. You would prefer your [bath-tub] at home, with a newspaper under you to soften it. I have been to the bank & bought exchange on London, & have reserved a handful of British gold for emergencies between here & the banking house in London. I enclose triplicate No. 2 & will give Charley No. 3, & carry No. 1 with me.2 Preserve yours—it is to protect me in case I lose No. 1. I have bought a hat, & some books & other traps. I go aboard the ship at noon [tomorrow]. Presently I am going out to dine with John Hay, & the Harper’s Drawer man & Will M. Carleton the [bal] farm-ballad writer.3 Bret Harte talks of going to Saybrook for a week. With ever so much love, my darling.

Y Samℓ.

[on the back:]

Pay Samℓ L. Clemens
—or order
E. Zeidler

Room 15. | Mrs. S. L. Clemens— | Fenwick Hall | Saybrook | Conn. [postmarked:] new york aug 20 6 pm

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Clemens wrote this letter on the backs of two advertising flyers printed by Slote, Woodman and Company, Blank Book Manufacturers, while at the company’s office, 119 and 121 William Street.

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2 Charles Langdon and his wife, Ida, arrived at the St. Nicholas late on 20 August. Langdon delivered two boxes of cigars to Clemens, sent by Theodore Crane (“Morning Arrivals,” New York Evening Express, 21 Aug 72, 3; Crane to SLC, 16 Aug 72, CU-MARK).

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3 William A. Seaver (1813?–83) had written the “Editor’s Drawer” in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine since April 1867. Born in New York State, he was for a time editor of the Buffalo Courier. In the early 1860s he went to New York City, where he edited a church journal and wrote correspondence for several newspapers. In addition to his column in Harper’s, he wrote the personal columns in Harper’s Weekly and Harper’s Bazar. According to the obituary writer for the New York Times, Seaver was “an admirable story-teller,” and “displayed the finest taste in dinners, and was counted a judge of wines without a superior” (“William A. Seaver,” 8 Jan 83, 5; Durfee, 691). Will M. Carleton (1845–1912) was born on a farm in Michigan. After graduating from Hillsdale College in 1869 he worked as an editor for the Hillsdale (Mich.) Standard and the Detroit Tribune. In the 1871 Harper’s Weekly he published a series of four “Farm Ballads,” whose simple language and homely sentiments gave them wide popularity (Carleton 1871 [bib12537], 1871 [bib12538], 1871 [bib12539], 1871 [bib12540]). A collection of his poems, Farm Ballads (1873), sold forty thousand copies in eighteen months. On 21 August the New York Tribune announced, “Samuel L. Clemens, esq. (Mark Twain), sails for England to-day, for a visit of several months. He was entertained last night at the Union League Club by a party distinguished in literature and politics” (“Personal,” 21 Aug 72, 5). This dinner, perhaps arranged by Hay, may have been Clemens’s introduction to both Seaver and Carleton. The other guests, if any, have not been identified.

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4 The exchange document that Clemens enclosed (“triplicate No. 2”), issued by Henry Clews and Company, located at 32 Wall Street, survives in the Mark Twain Papers. It has not been explained why this check (for about $1,275) was issued to “E. Zeidler,” who in turn endorsed it to Clemens. Ernest Zeidler is identified as a porter in the New York directory, and it is possible that Clemens entrusted him with this banking errand (Wilson 1872, 1325).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, collection of Chester L. Davis, Jr., is copy-text for the letter and envelope. The letter was written on the backs of two related flyers, one green and one blue, advertising the “Williams and Packard Patent Copy-book” and penmanship system. The flyers were printed by Slote, Woodman and Company, publishers of the copy-book. MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK), is copy-text for the enclosure; it is photographically reproduced.

glyph Previous publication: L5, 149–51; LLMT, 363, brief paraphrase of letter only; Davis 1977, 2, and Davis 1987, 4, letter only; Christie 1991, lot 187, excerpt from letter.

glyph Provenance:The letter MS, part of the Samossoud Collection in the late 1940s when it was transcribed by Dixon Wecter, was acquired by Chester L. Davis, Sr., from Clara Clemens Samossoud between 1949 and 1962 (see Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance). After Davis’s death in 1987, the letter MS was owned by Chester L. Davis, Jr., who sold it through Christie’s in December 1991. For the enclosure see Mark Twain Papers in Description of Provenance.

glyph Emendations and textual notes:

bath-tub • bath-|tub

tomorrow • to-|morrow

bal • [‘l’ partly formed]