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

To Ira F. Hart
per Olivia L. Clemens
12 January 1873 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS facsimile: Tollett and Harman, item 29, UCCL 00855)

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hartford, Jan. 12 1872–3. 1

dear sir:2

i thank you very much for your invitation, but am compelled to decline it, as i am not lecturing at all this season, ‸ except the lectures in New York— & Brooklyn ‸ 3 other duties rendering this course necessary.

yours truly,

mark twain.

Dear Sir

It will be impossible for me to reconsider the matter of lecturing in Elmira & Towanda.4 I have now more work to do than I can possibly accomplish between this & middle of April—5

S. L. C

Explanatory Notes

Editorial Signs

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1Olivia revised this printed form, evidently at Clemens’s direction. All of the writing is in her hand, including the appended note and signature.

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2Ira F. Hart, a physician on the Board of Health and treasurer of the Academy of Medicine in Elmira, was the likely addressee. Hart had been a member of the Young Men’s Christian Association since 1858 and was its corresponding secretary in 1872 and 1873. He had earlier served as Clemens’s host for the YMCA-sponsored lecture in Owego, New York, on 4 January 1870. And in January 1874 (or late December 1873) he again invited Clemens to lecture in Elmira (L3, 416; “The Twain Lecture,” Owego Times, 6 Jan 70, 3; Boyd and Boyd, 37, 46, 47, 48, 122; OLC to Ira F. Hart, 10 Jan 74, CU-MARK).

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3As the next letter suggests, Clemens’s two Sandwich Islands letters had brought invitations to lecture. As of this date he had tentatively agreed to lecture in New York City and in Brooklyn (24 Jan 73 to Redpath).

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4 Towanda, Pennsylvania, is about twenty-five miles southeast of Elmira. Hart’s connection with Towanda has not been explained.

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5 Clemens was determined to finish The Gilded Age before his departure for England, which was ultimately postponed until mid-May.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS facsimile, Tollett and Harman, item 29.

glyph Previous publication: L5, 267; Parke-Bernet 1944, lot 96, handwritten portion only; Christie 1988, lot 1188.

glyph Provenance:The MS was for many years in the Estelle Doheny Collection at The Edward Laurence Doheny Memorial Library of St. John’s Seminary, Camarillo, California. Heritage Bookshop purchased it in 1988, and Tollett and Harman offered it for sale in 1991.