3 September 1869 • Buffalo, N.Y. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00344)
I “cave.” You are right, &Ⓐemendation I was not. But I am only impatient about things once or twice a day—& then I sit down & write letters. The rest of the time I am serene.1explanatory note
Yes the Herald’s is a good notice & will help the book along. The irreverence of the volume appears to be a tip-top good feature of it, financially diplomatically speaking, though I wish with all my heart there wasn’t an irreverentⒶemendation passage in it.2explanatory note
The books have probably come—they have been to
The books will arrive today, no doubt, & as soon you have an agent in this region & we’ll turn the papers loose on them at once, if you say so, (orⒶemendation would you rather we waited till you have an agent here?3explanatory note
letter docketed: ✓ and Mark Twain | Sep 3/69
Neither Clemens’s impatient letter, probably written around 31 August, nor Bliss’s reply is known to survive.
The New York Herald reviewed the book favorably on 31 August. About the “pilgrimage to the Holy Land,” it commented:
This part of the work some over-pious and fastidious critics have condemned because, as they urge, of its levity. We cannot find anything so very irreverent in his account. ... We recognize as legitimate humor the grave statement that the party “looked everywhere as we passed along, but never saw grain or crystal of Lot’s wife,” although to some this sentence might seem somewhat irreverent. Here and there we find passages which might have been left out without injury to the work. The author, however, evidently has no respect for tradition—not even for Bible tradition. After swallowing all the free-thinking and rationalistic emanations of the day, we shall not strain over a few paragraphs, which, if not marked by austere piety, need not, necessarily, be regarded as sacrilege. If the Holy Land did not inspire the author with enthusiastic emotions, we have no doubt it was because the Holy Land has been persistently lied about by nearly all other authors. (“Literature,” 8)
Clemens omitted this and other references to his supposed “irreverence” when he reprinted the review in the Buffalo Express of 9 October (“Advertising Supplement,” 1).
Bliss responded, within four days, with copies of Innocents for the Buffalo papers and, apparently, with a suggestion that advertising and reviews be coordinated for late September or the first part of October (see 7 Sept 69click to open link 2nd of 2, and 27 Sept 69click to open link, both to Bliss).
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L3 , 329–330; MTMF , 110, excerpt; MTLP , 28.
see Mendoza Collection, p. 587.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.
The MS shows a number of inkblots, evidently from ink splattered at the American Publishing Company after receipt of the letter.