To
Fannie Dennis
17 February 1871 • Buffalo, N.Y. (MS: Axelrod, UCCL 00578)
17 February 1871 • Buffalo, N.Y. (MS: Axelrod, UCCL 00578)
c
Buffalo, Feb. 17/71.
Miss Fannie Dennis:
Brooklyn:
To write an autograph is no trouble at all, when a body is used to it, but I never have tried to add a “sentiment” in my life, & so I assure you it comes awkward enough.1explanatory note Therefore, let us judge just dodge the difficulty entirely & make use of somebody else’s sentiment. Now I always admired that neat & snappy thing which good old John Bunyan said to the Duke of Wellington: “Give me liberty, or give me death!” It Isn’t Ⓐemendationit pretty?
Explanatory Notes
1
Dennis’s autograph request is not known to survive. She has not been further identified.
Emendations and Textual Notes
Ⓐ
Truly ●
possibly ‘Y Truly’;
‘Y’ partly
formed
Ⓐ Saml. . . .
Twain. ● a vertical brace spans the right margin of the two-line signature
References
- 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
MS, collection of Todd M. Axelrod.
L4 , 334.
The current location of the MS, owned in 1980 by James Pepper and in 1983 by Axelrod, is not known.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.