30 March 1881 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: NN-BGC, UCCL 02551)
Yes, must have nice pictures, & a generous sufficientcy of them, too. Make the limit the figure you suggest—$2,800.
Please send me the enclosed dam book. Got the others. Much obliged.
Howells don’t seem to have no taste. The Earl’s literary excrement charmed me like Fanny Hill. I just wallowed in it. I do not think you ought to publish it yourself, but I do think you g ought to use your influence with Aldrich. ButⒶemendation you never will. You are as dainty & effeminate as Howells; so I know perfectly well that you will simply urinate on the Earl’s MS & send it back to him without further other comment. It is what Howells used to do with poems of sentiment when I sent him any.
written on back of letter as folded:
I returned Earl’s MS to you today.
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
- Hill, Hamlin, ed. Mark Twain’s Letters to His Publishers, 1867–1894. Edited by Hamlin Hill. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1967
MS, NN-BGC.
MTLP, 135–36.
Sometime before 1939 the MS was purchased by businessman William T. H. Howe (1874–1939); in 1940 Dr. Albert A. Berg bought and donated the Howe Collection to NN.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.