5 November 1870 • Buffalo, N.Y. (MS: NN-B, UCCL 00523)
It is a splendid idea! He will mad make Ⓐemendation a tip-top editor—a better than I, because he is full of talent & besides is perfectly faithful, honest, straightforward & reliable. There isn’t money enough in America to get him to do a dishonest act—whereas I am different. You just take him in hand & laugh with him & talk with him & keep him jolly, & I will answer for his editorial ability. I don’t fancy that you will have much trouble keeping him jolly, either, though he is not quite so sprightly & idiotic as I am. I find he is getting $1,300 a year where he is, but if you can’t stand the extra hundred, I’ll pay it. He gets $25 a week = $1,300 a year.
I have written him to let me know how soon he can come on, & have advised him to leave his wife here or at Fredonia with my sister till he goes to Hartford & arranges for board or house-rent.
I guess that after you have had him a year you will find that he is really worth a deal of money to you—I am well enough satisfied of it to bet money on it.
Well I thank you very much, Bliss, I d & I hope that results will in every way justify your kindness & leave you nothing to regret in the matter.
letter docketed: Mark Twain | Nov 5/70 | Author
References
- TS by anonymous compiler, CtHSD. 1974
- 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
- AAA/Anderson. The Fine Library of the Late Mrs. Benjamin Stern, Together with Autograph Letters from the Collection[s] of William L. Clements and E. W. Evans, Jr., and Other Properties. Sale no. 4111 (9, 10, and 11 May). New York: American Art Association, Anderson Galleries. 1934
- AAA/Anderson. First Editions and Manuscripts of Modern Authors, Early English Literature. . . . The Balance of the Eugene Field Collection of the Late Mr. and Mrs. William K. Bixby, St. Louis, Missouri; and Other Properties. Sale no. 4160 (13 and 14 March). New York: American Art Association, Anderson Galleries. 1935
- Hill, Hamlin, ed. Mark Twain’s Letters to His Publishers, 1867–1894. Edited by Hamlin Hill. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1967
- Cannon, Carl L. American Book Collectors and Collecting from Colonial Times to the Present. New York: H. W. Wilson Company. 1941
MS, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations (NN-B).
L4 , 223; AAA/Anderson 1934, lot 123, brief paraphrase; AAA/Anderson 1935, lot 80, brief paraphrase; MTLP , 41–42.
The MS evidently remained among the American Publishing Company’s files until it was sold (and may have been copied at that time by Dana Ayer; see Brownell Collection in Description of Provenance). The Ayer transcription was in turn copied by a typist and both the handwritten and typed transcriptions are at WU. The MS was offered for sale in 1934 and 1935. Until his death in 1939 it was owned by W. T. H. Howe; in 1940, the Howe Collection was purchased by Dr. Albert A. Berg and donated to NN (Cannon, 185–86).
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.