27 October 1882 • Hartford, Conn. (MS, typewritten, from dictation: CU-MARK, UCCL 02296)
delegated work is seldom thoroughly done. if i had written you myself i should have been better understood. for i should have made it plain that it is not simply the book that is in my way but many other things. one of these will cover the ground; i am under contract for a number of miscellaneous articles; i seldom write one; never write one except upon impulse; and when it is written it is no longer my property if i consider it worth printing. it must be applied upon the contract. i have no option in the matter. however i am less in debt, morally, than any of the rest of the tribe; for i handed the manuscript of “the innocenceⒶemendation abroad” to bret harte and told him to take such matter out of it as he pleased for the overland free of charge. i do not remember whether he used any of the matter or not, but he had abundant opportunity in as much as the book was not published until about two years later.
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
- Microfilm Edition of Mark Twain’s Manuscript Letters Now in the Mark Twain Papers. Prepared by Anh Quynh Bui, Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, Robert H. Hirst, Lin Salamo, and Harriet Elinor Smith. 11 vols. Berkeley: The Bancroft Library. 2001
MS, typewritten, from dictation, CU-MARK.
MicroML, reel 4.
See Mark Twain Papers in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.