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

To Unidentified
25 December 1868 • Lansing, Mich.
(Sales catalog: American Art Association, 24–25 November 1924, lot 97, UCCL 09449)

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[pen-and-ink sketch by Clemens, of himself and two other gentlemen viewing the scenes in Rome]

L. T.—First day in Rome. G & Mc take him to the villa Borghese. He is much impressed with the fountain. Xmas 1868.1

Explanatory Notes

Editorial Signs

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1Clemens most likely made his drawing, which is not known to survive, on 26 or 27 July 1867, when he and his Quaker City companions arrived in Rome for three or four days before traveling to Naples on 1 August. “G” may stand for “Frederick H. Greer (Blucher), of Boston, who had left the Quaker City on 30 June–1 July with Clemens and others to take a steamer from Gibraltar to Tangier and back; and “Mc” for Louis McDonald of Bristol, England, who is not otherwise known as one of Clemens’s companions on the trip. L. T., to whom Clemens gave the drawing on Christmas of the following year, has not been identified (L2: “Itinerary of the Quaker City Excursion,” 392–94; “Passengers and Crew of the Quaker City,” 385–87)

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

Sales catalog, American Art Association, 24–25 Nov 1924, lot 97. The MS, described in the catalog as “an original Pen-and-Ink Sketch by Clemens, of himself and two other gentlemen viewing the scenes in Rome, with the following inscription in the autograph of Mark Twain below the sketch,” was laid into a copy of Mark Twain’s Autobiography and First Romance (SLC 1871). When it sold again in 1936 (see below), it was laid into a volume Sketches New & Old (SLC 1875). The 1936 catalog transcription is identical to the 1924 transcription except for the addition of periods following ‘G’ and ‘Mc’ and the expansion of ‘&’ to ‘and.’

glyph Previous publication:

AAA/Anderson, no. 4283, 9–10 Dec 1936, lot 155.

glyph Provenance:

When offered for sale in 1924 the MS was part of the collection of William F. Gable; when offered for sale in 1936 it was part of the collection of Irving S. Underhill.