1 February 1869 • Jacksonville, Ill. (MS: NN-B, UCCL 02446)
I shall be in Elmira, New York, from Feb. 3 till Feb. 11. Send proofs there if you have any ready.1explanatory note I want to leave for California on a lecturing trip the middle of March.
I have now lectured thirty-five or forty times & am fagged out with travel. Have to begin again Feb. 12, though. ,& My last lecture will be March 16—won’t talk any after that, for anybody. 2explanatory note
letter docketed: ✓ author and Mark Twain | Feb 1/69 | Author
Clemens was answering a request (now lost) for an address to which proofs of his book, still tentatively called “The New Pilgrim’s Progress,” could be sent. He in fact saw no proofs until early March, when he reached Hartford.
If he wrote this letter after his Jacksonville performance, Clemens had lectured thirty-four times since 17 November 1868. His tour did not end until 20 March, in Sharon, Pennsylvania (see Lecture Schedule, 1868–1870click to open link).
References
- New York Public Library, Albert A. and Henry W. Berg Collection, 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
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 3: 1869. Edited by Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, and Dahlia Armon. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1992
- Paine, Albert Bigelow. Mark Twain: A Biography. By Albert Bigelow Paine. 3 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers. [Volume numbers in citations are to this edition; page numbers are the same in all editions.] 1912
- AAA/Anderson. First Editions and Manuscripts Collected by the Late Mr. and Mrs. William K. Bixby . . . and Other Literary Property. Sale no. 4098 (4 and 5 April). New York: American Art Association, Anderson Galleries. 1934
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain to Mrs. Fairbanks. Edited by Dixon Wecter. San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library. 1949
- Madison Memorial Union Library, University of Wisconsin, Madison
MS, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, New York City (NN-B).
L3 , 84; MTB , 1:377, brief paraphrase; AAA/Anderson 1934, lot 123, brief excerpt; MTMF , 68, with omissions, and 87, brief excerpt.
An Ayer transcription and a Brownell typescript of this letter are at WU; see Brownell Collection, pp. 581–82.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.