To
Miss Holmes
13 April 1877 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: CLjC, UCCL 11456)
13 April 1877 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: CLjC, UCCL 11456)
slc farmington avenue, hartford.
Apl. 13, 1877.
My Dear Miss Holmes:
It gives me great pleasure to comply with your request. You will perceive that after seven years’ devotion to Art I have improved considerably in figure drawing. I regard figure-drawing as my specialty, although some think I am as good at landscapes & still life., these persons even carrying compliment so far as to say they cannot tell my landscapes from my still life, nor either of them from my marine views.
In this portrait the President is not saying “Now I lay me down to sleep.” ⟦See note under picture for explanation of the situation.”Ⓐemendation⟧1explanatory note
Ys Truly
S. L. Clemens
Mark
Twain
Explanatory Notes
1 Miss Holmes has not been identified, nor has the enclosed drawing of President Hayes
been found.
Emendations and Textual Notes
Ⓐ situation.” ● sic; superfluous close quotation marks
References
- The James S. Copley Library, La Jolla, California. The collection of the Copley Library was sold in a series of auctions at Sotheby’s, New York, in 2010 and 2011.
- 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
- Sotheby’s, New York, N.Y.
- Microfilm Edition of Mark Twain’s Previously Unpublished Letters.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, CLjC.
Sotheby’s catalog, sale of 23 October 1987, lot 8, with omissions; MicroPUL, reel 1.
The MS was sold by Sotheby’s, New York, in October 1987, to John Feldman; it was later purchased by CLjC.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.