10 April 1874 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 01074)
Am expecting Mollie presently.1explanatory note
There seems to have been an item in the N. Y. Eve. Post the other day, saying that I had paid for a complimentary dinner to myself. Keep perfectly quiet about this but get me a copy of that paper—don’t cut out the item.2explanatory note There is going to be a libel suit, & I t Ⓐemendation want that fact to be kept secret.
Orion Clemens Esq | 40 W. 9th st. | New York. in upper left corner: Private. | rule on flap: slc/mt postmarked: n. y. & boston r.p.o. Ⓐemendation apr 10 3explanatory note
Mollie Clemens was taking the train up from New York to ask Clemens for financial assistance (see 23 Apr 74 to OCclick to open link, 10 May 74 to JLCclick to open link, and 10 May 74 to OCclick to open link).
Orion was still working as a proofreader on the New York Evening Post, under a foreman who, Clemens recalled, “swore at him & ordered him around ‘like a steamboat mate’” (9 Feb 79 to Howells, NN-B, in MTHL , 1:254).
That is, the New York and Boston railway post office, which operated over the New Haven and Hartford Railroad and accepted mail at the Hartford railroad station. Clemens mailed his letter there while awaiting Mollie (Norona, 362–63, 381; Remele, 1; Geer 1873, 308).
References
- University of California, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, Berkeley
- 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
- New York Public Library, Albert A. and Henry W. Berg Collection, New York
- MTHL. Mark Twain–Howells Letters. Edited by Henry Nash Smith and William M. Gibson, with the assistance of Frederick Anderson. 2 vols. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 1960
- Geer, Elihu, comp. Geer’s Hartford City Directory, for 1873–74: Containing Every Kind of Desirable Information for Citizens and Strangers; Together with a Classified Business Directory. Hartford: Elihu Geer. 1873
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L6 , 103–104.
see Mark Twain Papers in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.