2 August 1873 • (1st of 2) • Edinburgh, Scotland (MS, draft telegram: CU-MARK, UCCL 08826)
American Telegram.1explanatory note
E. Bliss,
Hartford, Conn.
Stop that pamphlet.
This manuscript is a draft of the message that Clemens actually cabled to Bliss. The document Bliss received has not been found. For the date of this telegram, see the next letter.
Appearing upside down and on the back of this sheet are notes Clemens made for his most recent version of the long-germinating “Noah’s Ark” book, which he described in 1909:
I began it in Edinburgh in 1873; I don’t know where the manuscript is, now. It was a Diary, which professed to be the work of Shem, but wasn’t. I began it again several months ago, but only for recreation; I hadn’t any intention of carrying it to a finish—or even to the end of the first chapter, in fact. (SLC 1909)
(For Clemens’s earlier and later work on the project, see L3 312, 313–14 n. 7; L4 , 296 n. 3; and Baetzhold and McCullough, 91–110.) This draft telegram is among a group of sketchy notes, all on the same paper, which Clemens wrote in Edinburgh. Many of them refer explicitly to Exodus, chapters 19–22 and 34–35 (SLC 1873). On this particular sheet Clemens wrote “Edinburgh” four times, and several calculations to determine in what year various biblical characters died, based on figures from chapters 5–9 of Genesis, which recount the history of every generation from Adam’s creation until the death of Noah—a total of 2006 years. Clemens also wrote “Meth died 1656,” a conclusion he derived from Methuselah’s birth 687 years after the creation, to which he added the 969 years of his life.
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
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). “Untitled notes about the Old Testament for the “Noah’s Ark” book.” MS of thirteen pages, written between late July and late August in Edinburgh; preserved (probably by Clemens) together with fourteen pages of related notes from the later 1870s,. 1873
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 5: 1872–1873. Edited by Lin Salamo and Harriet Elinor Smith. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1997
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). “Notes.” Autobiographical reminiscence. MS of three leaves (numbered 5–7), dated 30 April, appended to unsent four-page letter of 14 May 1887 to Jeannette Gilder, both in CU-MARK. Published in MTL, 2:487–88. 1909
- 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
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 4: 1870–1871. Edited by Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, and Lin Salamo. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1995
- Baetzhold, Howard G., and Joseph B. McCullough, eds. The Bible According to Mark Twain: Writings on Heaven, Eden, and the Flood. Athens: University of Georgia Press. 1995
MS, draft telegram on a page of untitled notes (SLC 1873), Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L5 , 424.
see Mark Twain Papers in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.