28 February 1874 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: Cornman, UCCL 01057)
Please secure me a room at the Parker House for Thursday.1explanatory note
And please let me know right away if I am to talk Friday & what my subject will be.2explanatory note
letter docketed: boston lyceum bureau. james redpath. mar 3 1874
The Parker House, opposite the city hall at School and Tremont streets in Boston, opened in 1855 and became “a favorite down-town hotel, . . . the leading place down town where people congregate for news and gossip.” It offered “a large private dining-room for banquets, and numerous smaller dining-rooms” and was “renowned for the excellence of its cuisine.” Among its other attractions was “an oyster-counter and bar; and a large billiard-room” (Bacon, advertisement on page G, 353).
Clemens had originally proposed speaking twice in Boston, giving “Roughing It” and possibly his Sandwich Islands lecture (1 Feb 74 to Redpathclick to open link). Redpath booked him for only a single performance, of “Roughing It,” in Horticultural Hall on the evening of Thursday, 5 March. This was the first time Clemens had given that lecture in Boston (“Lectures This Evening,” Boston Evening Transcript, 5 Mar 74, 1).
References
- Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Cornman
- 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 6: 1874–1875. Edited by Michael B. Frank and Harriet Elinor Smith. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 2002
MS facsimile. The editors have not seen the MS, which was owned in 1965 by Charles Cornman, who provided a photocopy to the Mark Twain Papers.
L6 , 58.
owned by Stevens S. Sanderson in April 1949.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.