MTPDocEd
February 12, 1877
slc/mt
farmington avenue, hartford.
Geo. Bentley Esqr
Dear Sir,
Your kind note of Jany 29. is received, and I beg to thank you for taking so much
pains with Mr
Harte’s matter.
I will notify him of what has been done.1
The next time I write a miscellaneous article, I shall put off its publication in
the magazine here, long enough to
give an advance copy ample time to reach you. I found that the order which I gave,
to send me an advance copy of my last Atlantic
article to be forwarded to you, never reached Mr Howells at all, and consequently
received no attention. I wrote the order in the
margin of the proof, thinking Mr Howells would see it. But he sent the proof to the
printer without observing my corrections etc.2
Truly Yours,
Samℓ. L. Clemens
Explanatory Notes
1 Neither Bentley’s “note,” nor any letter to Harte mentioning the “pains” that had
been taken on his behalf, has been found. In early December Clemens had tried unsuccessfully
to interest Bentley in publishing Harte’s short story “Thankful Blossom” in
Temple Bar magazine; it appeared in four installments in December in the New York
Sun (5 Dec 1876 to Bentley, n. 2;
Harte 1876b). Bentley may have replied that he could not republish in England an article that
was already under copyright in the United States.
2 Clemens refers to “The Canvasser’s Tale,” in the
Atlantic Monthly for December 1876 (23 Aug 1876 to Howells, n. 4; 29 Dec 1876 to Conway, n. 2).
Copyright © 2007–2026 The Regents of the University of California. Full copyright statement: https://www.marktwainproject.org/copyright.html
MS, signed by SLC, Papers of Richard Bentley and Son, IU-R.
MicroPUL, reel 1.
Purchased between 1951 and 1961.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.