31 August 1870 • Buffalo, N.Y. (MS: NPV, UCCL 00498)
I know I ought to be thrashed for not writing you, but I have kept putting it off. We get heaps of el Ⓐemendationletters every day, & it is a comfort to have somebody like you that will let us shirk & be patient over it.
We got the book1explanatory note & I did think I wrote a line thanking you for it—but I suppose I neglected it.
But I know I sent you a letter from Fred Quarles th Ⓐemendationa week or two ago—a second letter, I mean.2explanatory note
We are getting along tolerably well. Mother is here, & Miss Emma Nye.3explanatory note Livy cannot sleep, since her father’s death—but I give her a narcotic every night & make her.
I am just as busy as I can be—am still writing for the Galaxy & also writing a book like the “Innocents” in size & style. Otherwise ⒶemendationI would have gone run down to see Margaret before she leaves for L St. Louis. I have got my work ciphered down to days, & I haven’t a single day to spare between this & the date which, by written contract I am to deliver the MSS. of the book to the publisher.4explanatory note
In a hurry
P. S. We all send love—Mother included, who says she is much obliged for your & Ma’s letters.
Unidentified.
William Frederick S. Quarles (1833–98) was the son of Jane Lampton Clemens’s sister, Martha Ann (Patsy) Lampton (1807–50), and her husband, John Adams Quarles (1802–76). As a boy Clemens had spent summers on the Quarles farm near Florida, Missouri ( Inds , 342; Lampton 1990, 57).
Nye (1846–70), Olivia Clemens’s former Elmira schoolmate, had arrived for a visit from Aiken, South Carolina, where she had been living with her parents and siblings since late 1869 (Wisbey 1991, 1–3; L2 , 324 n. 7; L3 , 506).
The contract called for delivery of the manuscript “as soon as practicable, but as early as 1st of January next, if said Company shall desire it” (Book Contract for Roughing It click to open link).
References
- Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
- Machlis, Paul, ed. Union Catalog of Clemens Letters. Edited by Paul Machlis. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. [In some cases, UCCL catalog numbers cited in this volume supersede those assigned in 1986 and reflect corrections or additions to the catalog since publication. An updated version of the catalog can be consulted via the Letters Search page at MTPO.] 1986
- 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
- Paine, Albert Bigelow, ed. Mark Twain’s Letters. Edited by Albert Bigelow Paine. 2 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1917
- Webster, Samuel Charles. Mark Twain, Business Man. Edited by Samuel Charles Webster. Boston: Little, Brown and Co. 1946
- Hill, Hamlin. “Escol Sellers from Uncharted Space: A Footnote to The Gilded Age.” American Literature 34 (March): 107–13. 1962
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer among the Indians, and Other Unfinished Stories. Foreword and notes by Dahlia Armon and Walter Blair. Texts established by Dahlia Armon, Paul Baender, Walter Blair, William M. Gibson, and Franklin R. Rogers. The Mark Twain Library. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1989
- Lampton, Lucius Marion. The Genealogy of Mark Twain. Jackson, Miss.: Diamond L Publishing. 1990
- Wisbey, Herbert A., Jr. “The Tragic Story of Emma Nye.” Mark Twain Society Bulletin 14 (July): 1–4. 1991
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 2: 1867–1868. Edited by Harriet Elinor Smith, Richard Bucci, and Lin Salamo. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1990
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 3: 1869. Edited by Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, and Dahlia Armon. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1992
MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV).
L4 , 185–186; MTL , 1:176, with omissions; MTBus , 117, brief excerpt; Hill, 43–44, brief excerpt.
see McKinney Family Papers in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.