27 and 28 January 1873 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: NN-B, UCCL 00868)
slc
I regret the delay, but I have been driven for time to even turn eat in, lately.
I have furnished the data to Chas. Dudley Warner & he wise willⒶemendation hurry up my biographical sketch.2explanatory note
I only know of 2 portraits of me—both wood. The one enclosed (which I have cut from a western newspaper) first appeared in the Aldine3explanatory note & they have probably sold an electrotype to the paper I speak of. But the picture is too large anyway, I suppose. The other portrait appeared in the London “Graphic” in September, & was excellent, but it is even larger than the Aldine cut.4explanatory note So I enclose a first-rate photograph, with an autograph on it, as you suggest.5explanatory note
As for selections, I would suggest:—from “Roughing It”:
The Pony Rider (descriptive)—page 716explanatory note
The South Pass ( ʺ ) ʺ 100
From The “Innocents Abroad”:
“ European Guides” (humorous)—2907explanatory note
B
Also Humorous:—viz:
The Jumping Frog
The Good Little Boy who didn’t prosper.Ⓐemendation
These are both in the small volume entitled “The Jumping Frog & other Sketches,”8explanatory note & I think all my books are in your principal public library. If not, I c will send a set to you if you desire it.
There is another humorous sketch which I like—“Baker’s Cat,” page 439, “Roughing It.”
And there is ( th Ⓐemendation also humorous—& if not pathetic—the author weeping over Adam’s Grave—page 567 Innocents Abroad.
Also “Buck Fanshaw’s Funeral,” page 328 “Roughing It.” 9explanatory note
But I must wait and take another look, for these selections seem cumbersomely long.
P. S.—28.—
These are only suggestions, nothing more. They are cumbersomely long, & you may be able to select something that will not crowd your space so much. I have suggested both di descriptiveⒶemendation & humorous writing—that is to say the serious & the humorous, because c humor cannot do credit to itself without a good backgroundⒶemendation of gravity & of earnestnessⒶemendation. Humor unsupported rather hurts its author in the estimation of the reader. WillⒶemendation you please present me in the two lights?
Mark Twain.
M. L. Simons Esq
enclosure 1:
enclosure 2:
Michael Laird Simons (1843–80) began his journalism career with the Philadelphia Inquirer and later worked for the Philadelphia Evening Telegraph, contributing to various literary journals as well. He was active in establishing the Reformed Episcopal church, and edited several historical and religious works (Wilson and Fiske, 5:535).
Simons had written to ask assistance in preparing a “biographical sketch” of Clemens to be included in a revision of the Cyclopaedia of American Literature, originally edited by Evert A. and George L. Duyckinck and first published in 1856. The new edition, “edited to date by M. Laird Simons,” appeared in fifty-two parts in 1873–74, and was published in two volumes in 1875. Warner prepared an article for it, based on the eleven pages of autobiographical “data” that Clemens provided him (now at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York), but preferred “as a matter of taste ... not to appear as the writer of the sketch” (Warner to Simons, 22 May 73, ODaU; SLC 1873; Charles Dudley Warner 1875).
The portrait of Clemens in the Aldine for April 1871 (4:52), reproduced on p. 285 as an enclosure, was engraved on wood by John C. Bruen from an 1870 photograph taken by Mathew Brady ( L4 , 416 n. 2). The “western newspaper” has not been identified.
The Graphic portrait appeared in the issue for 5 October 1872 (5 Oct 72 to Fitzgibbonclick to open link). It is reproduced on p. 162.
The “first-rate photograph” was taken by Edward H. Paige of Buffalo and first exhibited in his gallery in the spring of 1870. The print that Clemens signed and enclosed is not known to survive, so the enclosure is reproduced above from the engraving made for the Cyclopaedia (Duyckinck and Duyckinck, 2:951; several original prints of this photograph are extant, and are reproduced in L4 , 132, 136, 163).
The page numbers throughout the letter refer to the American Publishing Company’s first editions. Calling it “the finest piece of writing I ever did,” Clemens suggested to Elisha Bliss in March 1871 that he print the pony-rider passage (from chapter 8) in the American Publisher as an advertisement or foretaste of Roughing It ( L4 , 368). Simons included the pony-rider extract in his Cyclopaedia article, but not the description of South Pass (from chapter 12).
From chapter 27 of The Innocents Abroad, also reprinted in the Cyclopaedia.
Clemens referred to his first book, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, And other Sketches (SLC 1867), whose title sketch had first appeared in the New York Saturday Press for 18 November 1865 (SLC 1865). The collection does not include “The Story of the Good Little Boy Who Did Not Prosper,” which was first published in the Galaxy for May 1870, and was reprinted by Hotten the following year in Screamers. In March 1872 Clemens revised Hotten’s pirated text for inclusion in Mark Twain’s Sketches (SLC 1870, 1871, 1872; 31 Mar 72 to Osgood, n. 4click to open link; 20 Sept 72 to the editor of the London Spectator, n. 7click to open link).
The story of Jim Baker’s cat, Tom Quartz, first appeared in the Buffalo Express on 18 December 1869 (SLC 1869), and Clemens later revised it for inclusion in chapter 61 of Roughing It. Both versions were preceded, however, by an unpublished draft entitled “Remarkable Sagacity of a Cat,” probably written in June 1868 ( RI 1993 , 705; SLC 1868). Scotty Briggs’s interview with a “fledgling” minister to arrange Buck Fanshaw’s funeral occurs in chapter 47. The “author weeping over Adam’s grave” is from chapter 53 of Innocents; it was the third extract that Simons selected for his article.
MS, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations (NN-B), is copy-text for the letter. The enclosures are not known to survive. The source for the first is the Aldine 4 (Apr 71): 52; the second is from Duyckinck and Duyckinck, 2:951.
L5 , 283–287 AAA 1924, lot 552, paraphrase and brief excerpts.
The MS was offered for sale in 1924 as part of the collection of businessman William F. Gable (1856–1921). It was later owned by businessman William T. H. Howe (1874–1939); in 1940 Dr. A. A. Berg bought and donated the Howe Collection to NN.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.