5–10 March 1869 • Hartford, Conn. (Paraphrase: APC 1869, 1, UCCL 11599)
From the Mohawk Valley, N. Y., Register.
By a private note from “Mark Twain,” we learn that he is about to issue his new book, “The New Pilgrim’s Progress,” and then transform himself into a pilgrim again and start for California.1explanatory note
Neither the original letter, nor Elliott’s paraphrase of it in his newspaper, the Fort Plain (N.Y.) Mohawk Valley Register, has been found. That paraphrase survives only as it was reprinted in advertisements for The Innocents Abroad, first produced in early July. Although Clemens might have written this “private note” at almost any time in February or early March, when he still expected both to publish his book and to be in California by the end of March, he most likely would have waited until he had seen tangible progress towards publication. This letter therefore may be assigned to the initial period of his 5–13 March stay in Hartford, after he first saw such progress, in the form of early proofs of the illustrations, but before he learned that his book was in fact not “about to issue,” and that he needed to find a different title for it. Associate editor of the Mohawk Valley Register, Elliott had been Clemens’s host, and had praised him lavishly in print, when he lectured in Fort Plain the previous December ( L2 , 335). In 1869 Elliott continued this obsequious treatment, notwithstanding Clemens soon tired of it (see 21 Aug 69 to OLL, n. 6click to open link).
References
- American Publishing Company. Opinions of the Press. Advertising circular and supplement to the prospectus for The Innocents Abroad, [1–4]. Hartford: American Publishing Company. A copy of the earliest impression of the circular and a copy of the revised version bound into the prospectus are in CU-MARK. 1869
- 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
- University of California, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, Berkeley
- 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 2: 1867–1868. Edited by Harriet Elinor Smith, Richard Bucci, and Lin Salamo. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1990
Paraphrase, advertising circular for The Innocents Abroad, first printed in July 1869 (APC 1869, 1, see Lecture Schedule, 1868–1870click to open link), Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
Fort Plain (N. Y.) Mohawk Valley Register, possibly 9 April 1869. A clipping is missing from page 3 of that date’s issue in the surviving file of the Register in the Fort Plain Library (Sandra Cronkhite, personal communication); L3 , 135–136.
see Mark Twain Papers, pp. 585–86.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.