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Photographs and Manuscript Facsimiles, 1872–1873

Reproduced here are thirty-six contemporary images, many of them never before published, of Samuel and Olivia Clemens and their families, friends, associates, and places of residence during the period of these letters. Immediately following these images are six of Clemens’s holograph letters, reproduced in facsimile. We provide these documents partly for their inherent interest, and partly to afford readers a chance to see for themselves what details of the manuscript the transcription includes, as well as what it omits. Because of the imperfect nature of these facsimiles, close comparison with the transcription may turn up apparent discrepancies between the two.

Olivia L. Clemens, 1872 or 1873. Photograph by Horace L. Bundy, Hartford. Mark Twain House, Hartford, Connecticut (CtHMTH).


Langdon Clemens, 1872 (aged eighteen months). From Olivia L. Clemens’s photograph album, pages 15 and 24. Huntington Library, San Marino, California (CSmH).


Olivia Susan (Susy) Clemens, 1872 (aged six and one-half months). From Olivia L. Clemens’s photograph album, page 14. Huntington Library, San Marino, California (CSmH).

Samuel L. Clemens, September 1872. Photograph by Charles Watkins, London. “Mr. Sandifer” has not been identified (see 13–18 Sept 72 to Osgood, n. 3). Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).

Samuel L. Clemens, 1872. Photograph probably by Charles Watkins, but not from the same sitting as the image to the left. Printed on an oval silk doily with looped fringe (see the frontispiece). Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).

Langham Hotel, London. From a postcard in the Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).

Henry Lee. Photograph possibly by Charles Watkins in 1872. Printed on an oval silk doily identical to Clemens’s (previous page, top right). Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).

John L. Toole. Photograph possibly by Charles Watkins in 1872. Printed on a doily identical to Lee’s and Clemens’s, above. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).

Charles Godfrey Leland (Hans Breitmann) (London Graphic, 5 Oct 72, 324).

Samuel L. Clemens, 12 September 1872. Photographs by W. and A. H. Fry, Brighton. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).

Henry Lee, Samuel L. Clemens, and Edmund Routledge, 12 September 1872. Photograph by W. and A. H. Fry, Brighton. Addressed on the verso to Olivia (see 5 Oct 72 to Fitzgibbon, n. 4click to open link). Henry Lee autographed his picture, but Routledge signed Clemens’s name and Clemens signed Routledge’s, presumably as a prank. Two other prints of this photograph survive in the Mark Twain Papers, one signed only by Lee and one autographed correctly by all three men. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).

Nasr-ed-Din, shah of Persia (Harper’s Weekly 17 12 July 73: 616).

Edmund Yates, early 1880s (Yates 1885, frontispiece).

George MacDonald (Scribner’s Monthly 2 May 71: frontispiece).

Henry Watterson (Harper’s Weekly 16 6 July 72: 525).

Caricature of Samuel L. Clemens by Frederick Waddy for the London magazine Once a Week (14 Dec 72, 519; MTH, 188–89; Houfe, 487). The brief accompanying biography called Mark Twain the “best living exponent of American humour” (521).

Joaquin Miller, 1874. Inscribed to Walt Whitman (Traubel, facing 49).

James R. Osgood, 1870s? (Howells 1900, facing 122).

Mary Anne Hardy (Black, facing 198).

Iza Duffus Hardy (Black, facing 204).

Sir Charles Dilke (Harper’s Weekly 16 20 Apr 72: 317).

Reginald Cholmondeley, 1860s? Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).

Moncure D. Conway, 1870s? (Conway 1904, facing 1:108).

Henry M. Stanley (Harper’s Weekly 16 27 July 72: 581).

Shirley Brooks (Illustrated London News, 7 Mar 74, 225).

Tom Hood (Once a Week, 3 Aug 72, 101).

Samuel L. Clemens, 1873. Photograph by Rogers and Nelson, London. Inscribed to Charles Warren Stoddard. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).

Samuel L. Clemens, 1873. Photograph by Rogers and Nelson, London. “Copyright” is written in an unidentified hand. Mark Twain House, Hartford, Connecticut (CtHMTH).

Samuel L. Clemens, 1873. Photograph by Rogers and Nelson, London. Inscribed on the verso to Lilian W. Aldrich. “Copyright” is written in an unidentified hand. Houghton Library (Autograph file), Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (MH-H).

Clara Spaulding with Olivia Susan (Susy) Clemens in her lap, Olivia L. Clemens, Samuel L. Clemens, and John Brown, August 1873. Photograph by John Moffat, Edinburgh. Inscribed by Clemens. Mark Twain House, Hartford, Connecticut (CtHMTH).

Samuel E. Moffett, early 1870s. Photograph by S. S. Washburn, Louisville, Kentucky. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).

Olivia L. Clemens, 1872 or 1873. Photograph by Prescott and White, Hartford. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).

Olivia Susan (Susy) Clemens, August 1873 (aged seventeen months). Photograph by John Moffat, Edinburgh. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).

Clemens to Jane Lampton Clemens, 11 June 1871, postscript, Elmira, N.Y. Collection of Chester L. Davis, Jr. Manuscript scrap 10, recto and verso. Transcribed on p. 689. The body of the letter, written on the rectos and versos of nine scraps, was transcribed and photographically reproduced in L4 , 403–5, 581–84.

Clemens to Mary E. (Mollie) Clemens, 30 July 1872, New Saybrook, Connecticut. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK). Transcribed on p. 136.

Clemens to the editor of the Literary World, December 1872, Hartford, Connecticut. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (CtY-BR). Clemens wrote in the margins of page 106 of the December 1872 issue of the Literary World. Transcribed on p. 232.

Clemens to David G. Croly, 17 April 1873, Hartford, Connecticut. This facsimile of the letter, reproduced by photolithography, appeared in the New York Graphic for 22 April 1873. The manuscript pages were spliced together for the engraving, so that the text ran continuously, filling one and a half columns. The page breaks of the original have been conjecturally restored here: the indented lines at the top left of the second and last pages show that Clemens was writing around an embossment. The paper was probably of the type embossed with “E. H. MFG. CO.,” measuring 4 15/16 by 8 inches, which he is known to have used during this period. The short first page suggests that he may have begun his letter with a personal salutation and message, which were not reproduced in the Graphic. Transcribed on pp. 341–43.

Clemens to Charles Dudley Warner, 17 May 1873, on board the SS Batavia en route from New York, N. Y., to Liverpool, England. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK). Clemens began the letter on the back of his calling card, and finished it on the front, writing across the facsimile of his signature and the address. Transcribed on pp. 367–68.

Clemens to Olivia L. Clemens, 11 and 12 December 1873, London. Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK). The letter is written on two folders; page 1 is written on the front of the first, which is blank inside. Transcribed on p. 508.

Manuscript page 2, to Olivia L. Clemens, 11 and 12 December 1873. Written on the back of the first folder.

Manuscript page 3, to Olivia L. Clemens, 11 and 12 December 1873. Written on the front of the second folder.

Manuscript page 4, to Olivia L. Clemens, 11 and 12 December 1873. Written on the back of the second folder.

Manuscript page 5, to Olivia L. Clemens, 11 and 12 December 1873. Written on the third page of the second folder.

Manuscript page 6, to Olivia L. Clemens, 11 and 12 December 1873. Written on the second page of the second folder.

References

  1. Mark Twain House and Museum, Hartford, Conn.
  2. Henry E. Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, Calif.
  3. OSC (Olivia Susan [Susy] Clemens). Untitled biography of her father, MS of 131 pages, annotated by SLC, ViU[bib10492]. Published in OSC 1985[bib00979], 83–225; in part in MTA[bib00116], vol. 2, passim; and in Salsbury 1965[bib00200], passim. 1885–86
  4. University of California, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, Berkeley
  5. Yates, Edmund. Fifty Years of London Life: Memoirs of a Man of the World. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1885
  6. Houfe, Simon. The Dictionary of British Book Illustrators and Caricaturists, 1800–1914. Woodbridge: Antique Collectors’ Club. 1978
  7. Howells, William Dean. Literary Friends and Acquaintance: A Personal Retrospect of American Authorship. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1900
  8. Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass.
  9. SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 4: 1870–1871. Edited by Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, and Lin Salamo. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1995
  10. Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven, Conn.