Htf‸rd‸d Feb. 21.
My Dear Bro:
You make it appear that you are re-writing a portion of Jules Verne’s book. You will have to leave out your gorilla, your disordered compass & your trip to the interior world. Everybody would say you the ideas were Verne’s & nothing but the expansion & elaboration of them yours.
You are poaching upon Verne’s peculiar preserve, anyway, in writing this sort of story. That is plenty far enough to go—it [cannot] be wise to meddle with any idea or situation of his. Why don’t you find Verne himself down there? Why don’t you handle your gorilla for all he is worth & when you have good the ‸got the‸ good of him, let the reader discover that it is Verne in disguise. I think the world has suffered so much from that French idiot that they could enjoy seeing him burlesqued——but I doubt if they want to see him imitated.
You give me a most unsatisfactory idea of the story, sending it in random snatches. Don’t do that. Send it all at once.
If you burlesque Verne, of course the more ideas of you can use his ideas as much as you choose—but not otherwise.
Yr Bro
Sam
O. Clemens, Esq | Keokuk | Iowa
[return address:]
return to
| hartford, hartford co., conn., | if not delivered
withindays.
[postmarked:]
[hartford] conn. feb 22 1pm
Textual Commentary
Source text(s):Previous publication:MicroML, reel 4.
Provenance:See Mark Twain Papers in Description of Provenance.
Emendations and textual notes:
cannot • [‘nn’ conflated]
hartford
•
ha
[badly
inked]
