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Add to My Citations To William Bowen
12 June 1871 • Elmira, N.Y.
(Paraphrase: Hornberger, 10, and Hornberger
to DeVoto, 18 Dec 1940, UCCL 11808)
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[One additional letter is known to be in existence, in the possession ]of Miss Agnes M. [Bowen of Salt ]Lake City, [Utah, a granddaughter. ]. . . [Miss ] [Bowen has written that it is dated at Elmira, New York, June ] [12]. . . . [She writes: “It contains ]some interesting data regarding a lecture tour and plans for building a new home. [Reference is also made to Mrs. Clemens and my grandfather.]”1

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

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1 This letter, tentatively dated both 1873 and 1874 by Theodore Hornberger, was almost certainly written in 1871. On 12 June that year Clemens was in Elmira and was planning a lecture tour that might extend to the West, presumably including St. Louis, where Bowen lived. He evidently reported that possibility to Bowen, along with his intention to build a house in Hartford. Bowen’s reply, not known to survive, elicited Clemens’s letter of 23 July to him (9 Mar 71 to Cox; Hornberger to Bernard DeVoto, 18 Dec 1940, CU-MARK; Hornberger, 10).



glyphglyphSource text(s):glyph
No copy-text. The text derives from a paraphrase of the MS made by Agnes M. Bowen, William Bowen’s granddaughter, in a letter she wrote in 1940 to Theodore Hornberger of the University of Texas at Austin. As her letter has not been found, the text is based upon Hornberger’s two accounts of her paraphrase: (P1) Hornberger to Bernard DeVoto, 18 Dec 1940, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK), and (P2) Hornberger, 10. In P1, Hornberger conjectured that Clemens’s letter was written “probably about 1873,” and in P2, he reported that Agnes Bowen thought it was written “probably in 1874.” Contextual evidence strongly suggests, however, that 1871 was more likely (see p. 408, n. 1).

glyphglyphPrevious publication:glyph L4, 407–408.

glyphglyphProvenance:glyphAgnes Bowen may have sold the letter during or after 1941 (Hornberger to DeVoto, 28 Mar 1941, CU-MARK). Adopted readings followed by ‘(C)’ are editorial emendations of the source readings.

glyphglyphEmendations and textual notes:glyph


One . . . possession (P2) • A fourteenth letter, written probably about 1873, is in the hands (P1)

Bowen . . . Salt (P2) • Bowen, 434 South Edgehill, Salt (P1)

Utah, a granddaughter. (P2) • Utah. (P1)

Miss (C) • It has proved impossible to make arrangements to print this with the others, but Miss (P2); [not in] (P1)

Bowen . . . June (P2) • [not in] (P1)

12. (C) • 12, probably in 1874. (P2); [not in] (P1)

She writes: “It contains (P1) • It “contains (P2)

Reference . . . grandfather. (P1) • [not in] (P2)