17? April 1873 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: DLC, UCCL 00902)
How’s that, ?—for the present? Can’t hit on an entirely satisfactory titleⒶemendation, somehow—but we want a mere mention, now .—with either exceedingly complimentary additions, or pitiless abuse accompanied with profanity. We shall be down there within a fortnight. We think a pretty good deal of this novel I can tell you; even the paper it is written on cost eleven dollars.
letter docketed by Reid: Dear Hay: Here’s a chance for a rollicking bit of minion. It shld be must for Saturday.1explanatory note WR
and in unidentified hand:Hartford
18 Apr, 1873.Ⓐemendation2explanatory note
Clemens’s enclosure does not survive, but clearly was a suggested text for a notice of his forthcoming book, soon to be entitled The Gilded Age. The letter and its enclosure were probably used by John Hay to prepare the following item, which appeared in minion type (equivalent to seven-point type) in the Tribune for Saturday, 19 April (6):
Beaumont and Fletcher may now retire as instances of genius working in double harness. Mark Twain and Chas. Dudley Warner have written a novel in partnership! It will be published about the end of the Summer, and will be octavo in form and profusely illustrated. The book deals with the salient features of our American life of to-day; and, as might easily be divined, is in the nature of a satire. It is known to contain all the profound philosophy, the sound learning, and geological truth which are found in “Innocents Abroad” and “Roughing It,” and even more of practical wisdom and agricultural suggestion than are contained in “My Summer in a Garden.” It is no holiday work. It deals with every aspect of modern society, and we are authorized to announce that the paper on which it is written cost eleven dollars.
The collaboration of playwrights Francis Beaumont (1584–1616) and John Fletcher (1579–1625) was proverbial. My Summer in a Garden was the collection of humorous essays which established Warner as a writer of note (Boston: J. R. Osgood and Co., published in November 1870 L4 , 294 n. 1). The Tribune notice may also have drawn some information from a letter that Warner wrote to Reid on 7 April:
Maybe it’s a great piece of presumption, but Mark and I are writing a novel, and can so nearly see the end of it that it is safe to speak of it. No one here, except our wives, knows anything of it. We conceived the design early in the winter, but were not able to get seriously at work on it till some time in January. If there is any satire on the times in it, it won’t be our fault, but the fault of the times. We have hatched the plot day by day, drawn out the characters, and written it so that we cannot exactly say which belongs to who; though the different styles will show in the chapters. This may be a good feature, giving the reader relief, and it may be it will only bother him. It is, under the circumstances, rather a novel experiment. (Cortissoz, 1:273)
“It is an experiment,” Reid replied, “still it has been successful two or three times abroad, and you and Twain will make it successful if anybody can here. Besides it seems to me that you and he were well calculated to fit into and supplement each other’s work. Good luck attend you both” (10 Apr 73, Whitelaw Reid Papers, DLC).
MS, Whitelaw Reid Papers, Library of Congress (DLC).
L5 , 344–345.
The Whitelaw Reid Papers (part of the Papers of the Reid Family) were donated to DLC between 1953 and 1957 by Helen Rogers Reid (Mrs. Ogden Mills Reid).
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.