28 October 1881 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: NN-BGC, UCCL 02555)
How would it do, to set up the first & last signatures in Boston, & do the rest in Canada? You see, what I’m after is a preventive; I it is preferable to c even the best of cures. Those sons of up there will steal anything they can get their hands on—possible suits for damages & felony would be no more restraitnt upon them, I think, than would the wouldⒶemendation the presence of a young lady be to upon a stud-horse who had just found a mare unprotected by international copyright. In the one case, theft & piracy is the fateful doom; in the other, fornic copulation & adultery.
What day are you going to Canada? That’s the day that I’m going. Name it.
Say—I’ll pay all your expenses, you know.
Especially if there is any little game you play for amusement on such trips.
letter docketed: james r. osgood & co boston. oct 29 1881
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, 144.
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.