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

To Elisha Bliss, Jr.
28 September 1872 • London, England
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00816)

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slc

London, Sept. 28.

Friend Bliss—

I have been received in a sort of tremendous way, [tonight], by the brains of London, assembled at the annual dinner of the Sheriffs of London—mine [being (between you & me) [ bet being] ] a name which was received with a flattering outburst of spontaneous applause when the long list of guests was [called].1

I might have perished on the spot but for the friendly support & [assistance] of my excellent friend Sir John Bennett—& I [want] you to paste the [enclosed] in a couple of the handsomest copies of the Innocents & Roughing [It. ] ‸& send them to him.‸ His address is—

“Sir John Bennett

Cheapside

London.”

Yrs Truly

S. L. Clemens.

I have informed him [they are coming].2

[letter docketed:] S. L. Clemens | London | Sep 28th| 1872.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 See the next letter.

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2 The enclosures are not known to survive. Bliss evidently sent the books to Clemens for inscription, and Clemens then gave them to Bennett. The copy of Roughing It has not been found, but a copy of The Innocents Abroad (first edition, second issue, bound in morocco leather with gilt edges) survives in the collection of the Mark Twain House (CtHMTH), inscribed as follows:

To Sir John Bennett

With the warm regards of

The Author—

Samℓ L. Clemens

Mark Twain.

Nov. 7, 1872.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK). The MS, a single leaf, has been mounted on paper so that some letters and punctuation at the right and bottom edges of the verso are partially obscured.

glyph Previous publication: L5, 182–183; MTB, 1:462–63, excerpt; MTL, 1:199–200, with omission; Anderson Galleries 1916, lot 22, excerpt.

glyph Provenance:see Appert Collection in Description of Provenance.

glyph Emendations and textual notes:

tonight • to-|night

being . . . being • [sic]

bet being • beting [‘t’ partly formed]

called. • called[.] [obscured by mounting]

assistance • assiistance

want • wan[t] [obscured by mounting]

enclosed • enclose[d] [obscured by mounting]

It. • [deletion implied]

they are coming. • the[y] a[re] co[ white diamond ] [obscured by mounting]