12 May 1873 • Elmira, N.Y. (Mark Twain Quarterly, 5:19, UCCL 00914)
We sail from New York next Saturday in the BataviaⒶemendation—shan’t Ⓐemendationbe in Boston before sailing.
Shall return next October. May possibly lecture in 3 or 4 large eastern cities—but nowhere else.2explanatory note
Too late to write me here. London address will be care of
Geo. Routledge & ⒶemendationSons
The Broadway
Ludgate Hill London E. C.
Clemens left Hartford on 8 May, after signing the contract for The Gilded Age, and stopped briefly in New York, where he met with Edward T. Potter (his architect) and John B. Garvie (his builder) to discuss plans for the new house. He probably arrived in Elmira late on 9 May (Elisabeth G. Warner to George H. Warner, 8 May 73, CU-MARK).
Clemens did not lecture again in the United States until March 1874; see 17 Dec 73 to Redpath, n. 2.click to open link
“Letters to James Redpath,” Mark Twain Quarterly 5 (Winter–Spring 1942): 19.
L5 , 364.
The house style of the Mark Twain Quarterly employed boldface type, rather than italic, for emphasis. In the present instance, however, the boldface styling of “Batavia” almost certainly does not reflect an underline in the MS: Clemens rarely underlined ship names in his letters, and the Quarterly made an analogous styling change in at least one other letter for which MS is extant: see 8 Dec 71 to Redpath and Fall, published in the same issue (5:20).