Explanatory Notes        Apparatus Notes (Ⓐ)

Source: Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass ([MH-H])

Cue: "Good for Fawcett"

Source format: "MS"

Letter type: "[standard letter]"

Notes:

Last modified:

Revision History: AB

Published on MTPO: 2007

Print Publication: v6

MTPDocEd
To William Dean Howells
25 or 26 April 1875 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: MH-H, UCCL 01225)
My Dear Howells:1explanatory note

Good for Fawcett! The idea of a Mississippi pilot writing profound essays upon so imposing a subject as Ancient Oriental Trade! I think I’ll wr ring that into a chapter, for the honor of the craft. All the boys had brains, & plenty of them—but they mostly lacked education & the literary faculty.2explanatory note

We are ashamed to find that we gave you & Mrs. Howells a villainously hard bed to sleep on in the mahogany room.3explanatory note The bed is not built for that room yet, & we did not know the abandoned character of the temporary one. When you come next Saturday we’ll put you in a bed you’ll like better.4explanatory note

Yrs Ever
Mark.

I’ve written you twice since I got home—directed simply to W D Howells, Cambridge.

Textual Commentary
25 or 26 April 1875 • To William Dean Howells • Hartford, Conn. • UCCL 01225
Source text(s):

MS, Houghton Library, Harvard University (MH-H, shelf mark bMS Am 1784 [98]).

Previous Publication:

L6 , 463–64; MTHL , 1:78.

Provenance:

see Howells Letters in Description of Provenance.

More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.

Explanatory Notes
1 

This letter, written no later than 26 April (Howells answered the next day: see 7 May 75 to Howells, n. 1click to open link), replied to the following one (CU-MARK):

UCLC32151

editorial office of the atlantic monthly. the riverside press, cambridge, mass.

April 232, 1875.

My dear Clemens:

Send back this proof as soon as possible, for we’re getting short for time—please.

I thought you’d like to see this letter. Mr. Fawcette wrote The Pillars of Hercules in the January of 1874. I’d like his letter again.

You left your fur cap, which I propose to keep as a hostage.

I hope you’ve made Twichell envious of our Centennial.—

Mrs. Howells joins me in regards to the Clemens family.

Yours ever
W. D. Howells.

The proof that Howells asked for was the sixth (June) installment of “Old Times,” due out in mid-May.

2 

The enclosed letter from William Lyman Fawcett (or Fawcette), evidently a fellow pilot, has not been found. His “History of the Two Pillars” and “Old-Time Oriental Trade” appeared in the January 1874 and October 1875 numbers of the Atlantic Monthly. Nothing further has been discovered about him, except that in 1877 he published Gold and Debt; An American Hand-book of Finance (Chicago: S. C. Griggs and Company). Clemens did not mention Fawcett’s “profound essays” in his seventh and last installment of “Old Times on the Mississippi” in the August Atlantic.

3 

During the Howellses 11–13 March visit.

4 

The Howellses did not visit Hartford on Saturday, 1 May. On that day Howells was in Boston, where he attended a performance of the Gilded Age play (see 7 May 75 to Howells, n. 3click to open link).

Top