12 January 1873 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: OClWHi, UCCL 00856)
Bliss is going to send “Roughing It” to the Tribune today, so he says. If you ever do any book reviews for the paper, I wish you’d & Reid would arrive at an amicable arrangement whereby you can have an hour or two to write a review of that book in, for you understand it & a week’s holiday afterward to rest up in—for you know the people in it & the spirit of it better than an eastern man would.1explanatory note I shall hope so, at any rate. That is I mean I hope you’ll write it—that is what I am trying to mean.
Don’t answer this letter—for I know how a man hates a man that’s made him write a letter.
I have half a notion of preaching a Sandwich Island lecture in N. Y., (being invited thereto by several parties at rather seductive figures)Ⓐemendation. Tribune letters, you know. I published 2 letters on the Islands in the Tribune last week. 2explanatory note I But I am pretty busy & may not do it. Still, what I am trying to say, is, that if I do do it, I will then call upon you & get the answer to this letter——so don’t write.
Col. John Hay | Tribune EditorialⒶemendation staff | New York. | flourish return address: if not delivered within 10 days, to be returned to postmarked: hartford Ⓐemendation
With sales now lagging, Clemens and Bliss evidently hoped that a Tribune review from a sympathetic critic would boost the book’s popularity ( RI 1993 , 882–92; 19 Apr 72 to Bliss, n. 2click to open link; see also 26 Jan 72 to Redpath, n. 2click to open link). Reid did not assign the review to Hay, however, as he explained to Bliss on 26 January (Whitelaw Reid Papers, DLC):
Dear Sir:
I received the copy of Mark Twain’s book of which you speak, and have asked our Mr Ripley to give it early attention. ... he may be able to make such a notice as will be gratifying to you. In that case it will be none the less so to myself, since Clemens has few warmer friends or heartier admirers than
E. Bliss, Jr. Esq.
116 Asylum St.
Hartford
Conn.
George Ripley (1802–80) received a degree from Harvard Divinity School in 1826 and served as an ordained minister for fifteen years. In 1841, together with his wife, sister, and several others, he founded the Brook Farm Institute, a short-lived experimental community near Boston. He had been the literary critic for the Tribune since 1849. Clemens was not at all pleased with his review: see 2 Feb 73 to OLCclick to open link.
Clemens may have thought that Hay was out of town when the Sandwich Islands letters appeared (the letters are reprinted in Enclosure with 3 January 1873 to Whitelaw Reidclick to open link; and in Enclosure with 6 January to Whitelaw Reidclick to open link).
MS, Samuel Mather Family Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland (OClWHi).
L5 , 268–269.
donated to OClWHi in 1969 by Dr. and Mrs. Jonathan Bishop. Dr. Bishop is the grandson of Samuel Mather and Flora Stone, whose sister, Clara Stone, was married to John Hay.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.