11 April 1875 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: MeHi, UCCL 00518)
slc/mt farmington avenue, hartford.
I publish only through one house, “The American Publishing Company,” of this city. Theirs is a uniform edition.
The only good likeness of me that has been in print is one which first appeared in the London Graphic Ⓐemendation & afterward (July 4, ’74 Ⓐemendation) in Appleton’s Journal. Ⓐemendation 2explanatory note
I am dear Sir Ⓐemendation
This letter survives among the papers of John Samuel Hill Fogg (1826–96), a Boston physician (see the textual commentary). After polio confined him to a wheelchair in 1873, Fogg devoted himself, with the assistance of his wife, Mary, to building a manuscript collection that finally included five thousand autograph letters and documents. He made a special point of including a photograph of the writer with each letter he collected. It is very likely, therefore, that Clemens here answered an inquiry that was intended to produce a letter for Fogg’s collection as well as a photograph to accompany it (biographical information courtesy of the Maine Historical Society).
The London Graphic’s “good likeness,” an engraving from a photograph taken in London by Charles Watkins, appeared on 5 October 1872. A similar, but not identical, engraving—possibly prepared from the Graphic or from a Watkins print furnished by Clemens—accompanied George T. Ferris’s biographical sketch in Appletons’ Journal for 4 July 1874. It is reproduced on p. 447 (see 22 May 74 to Bliss, n. 2click to open link, and L5 , 162, 194–95 nn. 2, 6).
MS facsimile. The editors have not seen the MS, which is in the John S. H. Fogg Autograph Collection, Maine Historical Society, Portland, Maine (MeHi). The right edge of the letter is covered in the photocopy. Three required emendations, and one questionable reading, are noted below.
L6 , 445–449.
Fogg bequeathed his extensive collection to the historical society upon his death in 1896.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.