9 July 1869 • Elmira, N.Y. (Transcripts: CU-MARK and Merwin-Clayton, lot 125, UCCL 00325)
bituminous coal office no. 6 baldwin street
I failed to get the letter you speak of. Yes, put me down for the Boston lecture you speak of, by all means. Put me down for any time & place without consulting me—for without doubt I shall leave for California about 1st August. I go partly to advertise myself for in New England by newspaper letters.1explanatory note What Boston paper shall—what newspaper big gun—had I better write for? Will you speak to me of them about it? No matter about the price—let them pay what they think is fair.Ⓐemendation
Redpath’s letter does not survive. Clemens was preparing for his long-contemplated trip to California. Evidently he had asked John J. Murphy, the San Francisco Alta California’s New York business agent, who had expedited his Quaker City assignment in 1867 (see L2 , 22–24), for assistance. Murphy replied on 12 July: “I have been waiting to see Huntington Collis P. Huntington, one of the proprietors of the Central Pacific Railroad for some time. ... It is more than probable that I can get you a pass on the Central, but improbable that I can do any more. ... You can write for the Alta whenever you have time and inclination and it will be all right” (CU-MARK). About this time Clemens also wrote to Petroleum V. Nasby, inviting him along to give his “Cussed be Canaan” lecture. On 14 July Nasby responded:
My good friend Clemens:—your letter came duly to hand As I had no idea of going to the Pacific this season your proposition takes my breath away. If I had my new lecture completed I wouldn’t hesitate a minute, but really isn’t “Cussed be Canaan” too old? ...
Give me a week to think of your proposition. If I can jerk a lecture in time I will go with you. The Lord knows I would like to. I will give you a definite answer yes or no within a week (CU-MARK; published with omissions in MTB , 1:385–86)
Ultimately neither man made the trip west. (For Clemens’s opinion of “Cussed be Canaan,” see 10 Mar 69 to OLL and CJL, n. 1click to open link.)
P1, a photocopy of a handwritten transcription in an unidentified hand, is sole copy-text for most of the letter (282.1–10 and 282.12–13, ‘j. langdon ... it?’ and ‘Yrs ... Clemens’), Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK). The remainder is based on P1 and P2, each of which derives independently from the original MS.
L3 , 282; none known other than P2.
The location of the MS, which was sold in 1906 by the Merwin-Clayton Sales Company, is not known. The handwritten transcription was once part of the Tufts Collection (see pp. 587–88). From 1977 to 1987 it was in the possession of Theodore H. Koundakjian, who provided a photocopy to CU-MARK. It is now at Iwaki Meisei University, Iwaki, Japan. The transcript is written on a sheet of paper with the letterhead “the s.f. examiner ǀ san francisco.”
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.