8 November 1872 • London, England (MS: ViU, UCCL 00830)
With your kind permission I desire to say to those Societies in London and other cities of Great Britain, under whose auspices I have partly promised to lecture, that I am called home by a Cable Telegram.
I shall spend with my family, the greater part of next year here, and may be able to lecture a month during the Autumn upon such scientific topics as I know least about & may consequently feel least trameled in dilating upon
Since Clemens’s 5 November letters to the Daily News, the Morning Post, and the Times survive only in printed form, it is not known whether Clemens hired a copyist to make the duplicates he needed. But by 8 November he had found some help: except for the signature, the present letter is entirely in the hand of an unidentified amanuensis. This letter was not published, however, either in the London Telegraph or in any other London newspaper that has been found.
Edward Levy (later Levy Lawson, 1833–1916) was the influential editor of the politically liberal London Telegraph, a widely read newspaper known for “the promptitude, the fullness, and the variety of its telegraphic advices” ( Newspaper Press Directory , 17; Griffiths, 362–63). Levy began his journalism career as a drama critic on the London Sunday Times. He was appointed editor of the Telegraph in 1856 by his father (the proprietor), and his vivid treatment of the news brought to the newspaper a wide readership. Clemens later met Levy, probably through Anthony Trollope (see 6 July 73 to Fairbanks, n. 11click to open link).
James Macdonell (1842–79) was Levy’s “confidential helper.” He began his newspaper career in Scotland at age sixteen, and in 1865 went to work on the Telegraph. He was also a regular contributor to Fraser’s Magazine, Macmillan’s Magazine, and the North British Review (Griffiths, 388–89).
Unidentified.
References
- University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
- 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 5: 1872–1873. Edited by Lin Salamo and Harriet Elinor Smith. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1997
- Newspaper Press Directory. The Newspaper Press Directory and Advertisers’ Guide. Containing Full Particulars Relative to Each Journal Published in the United Kingdom and the British Isles. London: C. Mitchell and Co. 1873
- Griffiths, Dennis, ed. The Encyclopedia of the British Press, 1422–1992. New York: St. Martin’s Press. 1992
MS, Clifton Waller Barrett Library, Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville (ViU).
L5 , 219–220.
deposited at ViU by Clifton Waller Barrett on 15 May 1962.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.