17 August 1880 • Elmira, N.Y. (MS: NNC, UCCL 01824)
Greeting & welcome! Well, these are the circumstances: the new baby is 3 weeks old, & neither she nor her mother is able to sit up yet; nevertheless, both are doing hopefully. Mrs. Clemens has now yielded, at last, to the pressure brought to bear by friends & doctors, & has surrender ceased from nursing the child—so we expect her to begin to mend & strengthen up very soon. Our return to Hartford is indefinite, as to day or week; still we shall at least be there several weeks before you sail; so Mrs. Clemens desires her kindest regards to you Mrs. Conway, & begs that she will come, & you & Eustace with her, & give us a visit there——all of which I echo heartily. We can arrange dates that will suit your circumstances & ours before long, no doubt.
Well, well, well—we must have a talk about that astonishing Chatto-Comedy of Errors!
P.S. Up to end of June (pay-day) “Tramp” had sold 47,000 copies—but I think maybe I told you that.
References
- Columbia University, New York
- 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
- Microfilm Edition of Mark Twain’s Previously Unpublished Letters. Prepared by Anh Quynh Bui, Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, Robert H. Hirst, Lin Salamo, and Harriet Elinor Smith. 8 vols. Berkeley: The Bancroft Library. 2001
MS, Conway Papers, NNC.
MicroPUL, reel 1.
The Conway Papers were acquired by NNC sometime after Conway’s death in 1907.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.