24 March 1880 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 09197)
Remail this to me, Joe.
——
I have been feebly trying to give the Atlantic readers some notion of the charm
and the solid delightfulness of your book; and now I must tell you privately
what a joy it has been to Mrs. Howells
and me. Since I have read it, I feel sorry for I shall not be able to read it
again for a week, and in what else shall I lose myself so wholly? Mrs. Howells
declares it the wittiest book she ever read, and I say there is sense enough in it for ten books. That is the
idea which my review will try to fracture the average numbscull
with.—Well, you are a blessing. You ought to believe in
God’s goodness, since he has bestowed upon the world such a
delightful genius as yours to lighten its troubles.
Love from both of us to Mrs. Clemens. We wish we could come to see you, but we are many promises deep to the Warners, and our first visit must be to them. We shall hope for you here by mid-April.
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
- 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
- Microfilm Edition of Mark Twain’s Previously Unpublished Letters. Prepared by Anh Quynh Bui, Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, Robert H. Hirst, Lin Salamo, and Harriet Elinor Smith. 8 vols. Berkeley: The Bancroft Library. 2001
MS, CU-MARK. Written on a letter from William Dean Howells to SLC, 22 March 1880click to open link.
MTHL , 1:293; MicroPUL, reel 1.