The long sustained and necessarily intensive editorial labor represented by this volume, and by those soon to follow it, would have been impossible without the generous support of the American taxpayer, and the professional encouragement of scholars who, between 1976 and 1985, recommended funding for five successive grants to the Mark Twain Project from the Texts Program, Division of Research Programs, of the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency. The University of California Press was likewise assisted by a grant from the Publication Subvention Program in the Division of Research Programs at the Endowment. We are grateful for this intellectual and material support, part of which the Endowment was able to grant by matching, dollar for dollar, a major contribution from the Mark Twain Foundation to The Friends of The Bancroft Library on behalf of the Project.

In addition, since 1976 more than sixty individual and institutional donors—only a handful of whom can be mentioned here—contributed funds that have been matched by the Endowment in its continuing support of the Mark Twain Project. We are grateful to the Heller Charitable and Educational Fund; the Koret Foundation; Mrs. Calvin K. Townsend; The House of Bernstein, Inc.; the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr., Fund; the Crescent Porter Hale Foundation; Constance Bowles Hart; Clarence E. Heller; Dr. Myra Karstadt; Theodore H. Koundakjian; the Estate of Helen F. Pierce; William M. Roth; Marion B. and Willis S. Slusser; the Henry Nash Smith Memorial Fund; and the Wells Fargo Foundation. Robert S. Livermore greatly facilitated completion of the editorial work with his gift of a Zendex 95/35 multi-user computer system.

The Mark Twain Committee of the Council of The Friends of The Bancroft Library is chiefly responsible for persuading these and other private donors to lend their support to the ongoing editorial work of the Project. Our thanks go to present and former members of this committee: John W. Rosston and Willis S. Slusser, co-chairmen; Henry K. Evers, Stephen G. Herrick, and David J. McDaniel, former chairmen; William P. Barlow, Jr., Henry M. Bowles, Launce E. Gamble, Constance Bowles Hart, James D. Hart, Roger W. Heyns, Kenneth E. Hill, James E. O’Brien, Joseph A. Rosenthal, Herbert E. Stansbury, Jr., and Norman H. Strouse, as well as Kimberley Massingale, secretary to the Council.

Several members of the Mark Twain Project’s Board of Directors have been particularly helpful in sustaining the preparations required for this volume. James D. Hart, Director of The Bancroft Library, and Joseph A. Rosenthal, University Librarian, both at the University of California, Berkeley, have been steadfast and unfailingly resourceful in their support of the Project, intellectually and materially. William J. McClung, Editorial Director of the University of California Press, has been generous in his support, especially of the typographical experiments required to develop the system of transcription, which is used here for the first time. Henry Nash Smith, former Editor and Interim Editor of the Mark Twain Papers, has been for us what he doubtless was for others—a model and an inspiration for what it means to contribute usefully to scholarship on any subject.

Locating, collecting, and publishing Mark Twain’s letters has occupied at least three generations of scholars. We are indebted to all of them, but particularly to Albert Bigelow Paine and his successors as Editor of the Mark Twain Papers: Bernard DeVoto, Dixon Wecter, Henry Nash Smith, and Frederick Anderson.

Editing Mark Twain’s letters has required continuing and demanding research assistance. For such valuable aid over many years we are especially thankful to Donald E. Oehlerts, Director of the Miami University Libraries, and the staff of the Edgar Weld King Library, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio; the staff of The Bancroft Library, particularly Brenda J. Bailey, Anthony S. Bliss, Peter E. Hanff, Irene M. Moran, and William M. Roberts; Evelyn M. Kiresen, Leon D. Megrian, Jo Lynn Milardovich, and Donald G. Williams of the Interlibrary Borrowing Service, Philip Hoehn of the Map Room, and Daniel L. Johnston of the Photographic Service, all in the Library, University of California, Berkeley. We would also like to thank Nancy H. Harris in the Conservation Department of the Library, who has helped us preserve manuscript letters for posterity, even as we prepared their texts for publication.

Manuscripts as well as unique, nonoriginal forms of Mark Twain’s letters are dispersed among libraries and private collections worldwide. Most of the letters in this volume, however, are transcribed from the original documents in two locations: the Mark Twain Papers in The Bancroft Library, and the Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers in the Vassar College Library, Poughkeepsie, New York. At Vassar, Frances Goudy, Barbara LaMont, Eleanor Rogers, and especially and most recently, Lisa Browar, permitted timely access to unique Clemens materials and graciously answered our repeated requests for supporting documents, photocopies, and information. Similar assistance, less frequent but no less crucial, was provided by John Chalmers and Cathy Henderson of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin; Gregory Johnson of the Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville; Eric N. Moody of the Nevada Historical Society, Reno; Guy Louis Rocha of the Nevada State Library and Archives, Reno; Robert Nylen of the Nevada State Museum, Carson City; William D. Tammeus of the Kansas City Star, Kansas City, Missouri; Shirley Dick, Doris A. Foley, Karl Kiedaisch, Jr., and Betty Peters of the Keokuk Public Library, Keokuk, Iowa; Barbara Bublitz, Sheila Chaudoin, and Opal Tanner of the Musser Public Library, Muscatine, Iowa; David Crosson, Leda L. Greene, Soudi Janssens, Nancy Kraft, Karon Moll, and Vernon Tyler of the State Historical Society of Iowa at Des Moines; Debbie O’Brine of the Iowa Masonic Library, Grand Lodge of Iowa, Cedar Rapids; and Raymond H. Nartker of the University of Dayton Library. All of the institutions mentioned in this paragraph have generously given permission to publish letters from their holdings.

In addition, Todd M. Axelrod, Robert Daley, Robert A. Gates, and Victor Jacobs made it possible to include letters or to quote from Clemens documents in their several private collections. The remarkable collection acquired by The Bancroft Library from James and John M. Tuftsin 1971, and the outstanding collection of Mark Twain materials donated to The Bancroft Library by Mr. and Mrs. Kurt E. Appert in 1973 and 1977, both provided letters not otherwise available. To all of these collectors we express our special gratitude for their enterprise and their cooperation.

In the course of annotating these letters we asked for, and received, help from the following, who have our thanks: Donald C. Gallup, David E. Schoonover, and the staff of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Henry Sweets of the Mark Twain Museum, Hannibal, Missouri; Herbert A. Wisbey, Jr., of the Center for Mark Twain Studies, Elmira College, Elmira, New York; Kenneth B. Holmes, Floyd C. Shoemaker, and Alma Vaughan of the State Historical Society of Missouri at Columbia; Deborah W. Bolas and Stephanie A. Klein of the Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis; Elizabeth Kirchner and the staff of the St. Louis Mercantile Library; Fred O. Hahn of Polar Star Masonic Lodge No. 79, St. Louis; Russell B. Thimmig, Sr., of the Scottish Rite Library, St. Louis; Susan Shaner of the Hawaii State Archives, Honolulu; Clive E. Driver of the Rosenbach Museum & Library, Philadelphia; Mrs. Elmer S. Forman and the staff of the Cincinnati Historical Society; Yeatman Anderson, HI, and the staff of the Rare Book Room, Cincinnati Public Library; Helen Burkes of the Tulane University Library; Jane P. Kleiner of the Louisiana State University Library at Baton Rouge; Wayne Eberhardt and Collin B. Hamer of the New Orleans Public Library; Ardie Kelly of the Mariners’ Museum, Newport News, Virginia; James Harkins of the Memphis Public Library; the staff of the John W. Brister Library, Memphis State University; the staff of the Illinois State Historical Society, Springfield; Paul Boswell of the Newspaper and Current Periodical Room of the Library of Congress; Kenneth Hall of the National Archives; Alice C. Dalligan and Mary Karshner of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library; Robert E. Blesse of the Special Collections Department, University of Nevada Reno Library; Roberta Waddell, Curator of Prints, New York Public Library; Mabel Bartenhagen; Miriam Jacobs; and Coralee Paull. We extend a particular word of thanks to Michael H. Marleau, who provided us with copies of deeds and other documents gleaned from obscure Nevada mining records.

We greatly appreciate the collaboration of several individuals who shared information and documents that have notably enriched the annotation. Fred Clagett provided biographical details about his grandfather, Clemens’s friend William H. Clagett, as well as a copy of a receipt in Clemens’s handwriting, transcribed in a note. Mrs. Kate Gilmore, a distant relative of Clemens’s mother, allowed us to publish a rare photograph of Pamela A. Moffett, his sister. Mr. and Mrs. Robert M. Gunn made available family records of Mr. Gunn’s grandparents, Clemens’s close friends Robert M. and Louise Howland, including the photograph of Robert reproduced here. Gladys Hill provided information about the three Taylor sisters, who were friends of Clemens’s in Keokuk, Iowa. Mrs. Helen Jackson donated to The Bancroft Library an original photograph of her great-aunt, Laura Wright, one of Clemens’s more memorable sweethearts, which we publish here for the first time. Jervis Langdon, Jr., responded generously to our requests for genealogical information about the Clemens and Langdon families. And H. LeRoy Oliver furnished facts about his great-grandfather, Augustus W. Oliver, another of Clemens’s early associates in the West.

Throughout the process of design and typesetting for this volume we have had expert assistance from several individuals. At the University of California Press, we want to thank Czeslaw Jan Grycz, Steve Renick, and especially Fran Mitchell, for their expert and always timely advice and guidance. Our typesetters, Wilsted & Taylor Publishing Services of Oakland, California, provided patient, expert help in designing the typographical aspect of the new system of transcription, as well as attentive, informed, and exceptionally accurate typesetting of the volume itself. Clemens himself might have felt a shock of recognition at this thoughtful and ingenious application of modern technology to the best traditions of typography. For their commitment to realizing Clemens’s handwritten letters in type, and to every other aspect of the editorial matter, we are grateful and the reader is indebted to Burwell Davis, Nancy Evans, Andrew Joron, Matthew Lasar, Jane Ellen Long, Henry Mooney, Rosemary Northcraft, Gary Pierce, Vivian Scholl, Fronia Simpson, Christine Taylor, Mary VanClay, Sherwood Williams, and LeRoy Wilsted. John R. Parsons and Mark Williams of Eureka Cartography, in Berkeley, California, expertly redrew the maps of Nevada Territory (Appendix C) from drafts prepared by the editors. Allen McKinney of Graphic Impressions, Emeryville, California, prepared the half-tones for the MS facsimile reproductions and other illustrations. Albert Burkhardt conceived the original type and book design, which has been slightly modified and adapted for this first volume of Mark Twain’s Letters. Jane Moore checked transcriptions against original letters at the Nevada Historical Society, the Nevada State Library and Archives, and the University of Nevada Reno. In 1977, on behalf of the Modern Language Association’s Committee on Scholarly Editions, Thomas Wortham carried out a helpful advisory inspection of preliminary editorial work for this volume. Robert Sattelmeyer was the perceptive and constructive inspector of the completed volume, which received the Committee’s seal of approval in 1987. For invaluable advice and support during the evolution of editorial policy, we would also like to thank Helen C. Agüera, Jo Ann Boydston, Don Cook, Kathy Fuller, Michael Millgate, Hershel Parker, and Elizabeth Witherell.

Finally, we wish to thank our associates in the Mark Twain Project for their selfless labors on our behalf. All members of the editorial staff gave enthusiastically of their special expertise, while also sharing the burden of mundane tasks like proofreading, collating, and checking. Dahlia Armon prepared the genealogy of the Clemens family, now the most complete available, reproduced in Appendix A. Priscilla Botsford helped draft the maps of Nevada Territory. Janice E. Braun contributed materially to the accuracy of the texts as well as the index. Robert Pack Browning painstakingly checked manuscript letters at several public and private collections against the transcriptions prepared for this volume. Victor Fischer brought his exceptional familiarity with Clemens’s handwriting and his experience with typography and design to bear on vexing problems of transcription and on the evolution of editorial policy. Paul Machlis’s Union Catalog of Clemens Letters (1986) was essential to the preparation of this volume—as it will be to all later volumes—of letters. His deft command of detail is evident in that catalog and in the index to the present volume, which he supervised. Daniel J. Widawsky assisted in the preparation and verification of the textual apparatuses and the index. The work of these editors was complemented by the efforts of a succession of student assistants—Elizabeth Bishop, Susan Gillman, David J. Goodwin, Penny Johnson, and Nancy Davis Spriggs—and by the steady support of Janet Leigh and Dorothy Gottberg, former and present administrative assistants to the Project. Their efficient and willing dispatch of a formidable host of duties, from budgeting to computer procurement, has expedited every aspect of the editorial process. All of these good colleagues and good friends have made the editing of Mark Twain’s letters, always a stimulating enterprise, a congenial one as well.

E.M.B.   M.B.F.   K.M.S.

H.E.S.   L.S.   R.B.