13–18 September 1872 • London, England (Rendell 1970, item 35, UCCL 00937)
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Enclosed is a photo.3explanatory note Hope to send a better one when our latest come up from that Brighton place.4explanatory note Here’s to you!
The Langham Hotel, in Portland Place, was built in 1864,
in the style of a Florentine palace on seven floors, with 600 rooms including many private suites. It was magnificently furnished in white, scarlet and gold. There were 15,000 yards of carpet and the plaster-relief ceilings and mosaic flooring were by Italian craftsmen. (Weinreb and Hibbert, 445–46)
Although greatly damaged in the Second World War, the building still stands, housing offices and studios of the British Broadcasting Corporation (Weinreb and Hibbert, 446).
This letter was written after Clemens’s Brighton excursion, and presumably in time to reach Osgood in London before his departure on 19 September (Weber, 130).
The photograph does not survive, but was almost certainly the “London picture” taken by Charles Watkins (5 Oct 72 to Fitzgibbonclick to open link), the only known print of which was inscribed to “Mr. Sandifer.” (A “Jabez Sandifer,” otherwise unidentified, is listed in the 1873 London Directory {2147}.) It is reproduced in Photographs and Manuscript Facsimilesclick to open link.
While in Brighton on 12 September Clemens had several photographs taken at the studio of W. and A. H. Fry, “Art Photographers and Miniature Painters”: four poses are known to be extant. Clemens, Lee, and Routledge also sat for a group photograph, and on one of the surviving copies, each man signed his name under his picture. All of the surviving Brighton poses are reproduced in Photographs and Manuscript Facsimilesclick to open link.
Rendell 1970, item 35, which describes the letter as an “ALS, 1p., 8vo, The Langham, undated. On his crested stationery, to ‘Dear Osgood.’”
L5 , 158–159.