20 November 1874 • (2nd of 2) • Hartford, Conn. (MS: NN-B, UCCL 02478)
Cut it, scarify it, reject it—handle it with entire freedom.
It will make 4½ or 5 pages. Is that too long? Suppose we publish only every other month—that is best, isn’t it?1explanatory note
Clemens enclosed the manuscript of the first installment of “Old Times on the Mississippi,” which appeared in the Atlantic in January 1875. Howells replied (CU-MARK):
Clemens might have enclosed the photographs for Elinor Howells in his second letter of November 20, if it was written late in the day on Saturday, but it is also possible that he sent them in an unrecovered letter on 21 November (for the photographs of Susy and Clara, see pp. 682, 683; for the likely image of the Hartford house see 26 Jan? 75 to Brushclick to open link). Such a letter might have included mention of Twichell’s response to the Limerick fantasy, as well as commentary on the supposed affinity with Charles Lamb, although Twichell could have raised those matters himself in a letter to Howells. Of course Howells knew that Clemens’s middle name was “Langhorne,” but his joke may have been a play on the family name “Lampton” (see the next letter, n. 4).
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 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
- Paine, Albert Bigelow. “Some Mark Twain Letters to William Dean Howells and Others.” Harper’s Monthly Magazine 134 (May): 781–94. 1917
- Paine, Albert Bigelow, ed. Mark Twain’s Letters. Edited by Albert Bigelow Paine. 2 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1917
- 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
- University of California, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, Berkeley
MS, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library, New York (NN-B).
L6 , 294–95; Paine 1917, 784; MTL , 1:230, excerpt; MTHL , 1:42.
see Howells Letters in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.