Jump to Content

Add to My CitationsTo Elisha Bliss, Jr.
5 May 1868 • San Francisco, Calif.
(Typed transcript made for Albert Bigelow Paine and
handwritten transcript made by Dana S. Ayer:
CU-MARK and WU-MU, UCCL 02731)
Click to add citation to My Citations.

[San Francisco
em spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem space[May 5./68]]0

}

E. [Bliss, Jr. Esq.]
em spaceem spaceem space[Dr Sir—]

The Alta people, after some hesitation, have given me permission to use my printed letters, & have ceased to think of publishing them themselves in book form. I am steadily at work, & shall start east with the completed [manuscript] about the middle of June.1

[I] lectured here on the trip the other night—over sixteen hundred dollars in gold in the house—every seat taken & paid for before night.

Yrs Truly

Mark Twain

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Add to My Citations

Click to add citation to My Citations.
0The present text, notes, and apparatus supersede those previously published in L2, 215–16. L2’s version is available here.

Add to My Citations

Click to add citation to My Citations.
1Clemens’s intention was probably to depart on the Pacific Mail Steamship Company’s Golden City, scheduled for Saturday, 13 June. The company routinely dispatched its steamers for the Isthmus of Panama (and hence for New York) on the sixth, fourteenth, twenty-second, and thirtieth of each month, except when the date fell on a Sunday, which occasioned departure one day earlier or later (“Ocean Steamers,” San Francisco Alta California, 4 June 1868, 4).



glyphglyphSource text(s):glyph
None. The text is based on three transcripts, each of which derives independently from the original holograph letter, which has not been found. Tr1 and Tr2 are almost textually identical, but like other duplicate typescripts prepared for Paine, were probably both made with the original manuscript accessible to the typist: when they agree, they strongly confirm each other.
Tr1Typed transcript made for Albert Bigelow Paine, CU-MARK
Tr2Typed transcript made for Albert Bigelow Paine, CU-MARK
Tr3Handwritten transcript by Dana S. Ayer, WU-MU
Transcripts published in MTB and MTL both derive from Tr1 or Tr2, so their (very slight) variants are derivative and not recorded here.

glyphglyphPrevious publication:glyphMTB, 1:363, partial publication; MTL, 1:152–53; L2, 215–16.

glyphglyphProvenance:glyphSee Paine Transcripts and Brownell Collection in Description of Provenance.

glyphglyphEmendations, adopted readings, and textual notes:glyph


[two-line brace] (Tr3) • [not in] (Tr1, Tr2)

May 5./68. (Tr1, Tr2) • May ~,/~⁁ (Tr3)

Bliss, Jr. Esq. (Tr1, Tr2) • ~⁁ ~⁁ ~⁁ (Tr3)

Dr Sir— (MTP) • Dr. ~— (Tr1, Tr2); Dr ~: (Tr3)

manuscript (Tr3) • Manuscript (Tr1, Tr2)

[] (Tr2, Tr3) • [four-em ] (Tr1)