Explanatory Notes        Apparatus Notes (Ⓐ)

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

Cue: "You see, per"

Source format: "MS"

Letter type: "[standard letter]"

Notes:

Last modified:

Revision History: AB

Published on MTPO: 2007

Print Publication: v6

MTPDocEd
To James R. Osgood
16 August 1875 • Newport, R.I. (MS: MH-H, UCCL 01257)
slc/mt
Bateman’s,
                                         Newport, 16th.
My Dear Osgood:

You see, per enclosed, that Gill, the infernal thief, is still advertising my name in his book. How is this?1explanatory note

Yrs Truly
S. L. Clemens
Textual Commentary
16 August 1875 • To James R. Osgood • Newport, R.I. • UCCL 01257
Source text(s):

MS, Rogers Memorial Room, Houghton Library, Harvard University (MH-H).

Previous Publication:

L6 , 524–525.

Provenance:

The Henry M. Rogers and Kathleen Rogers Collection was donated in 1930.

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

Explanatory Notes
1 

The advertisement that Clemens enclosed has not been identified, but it was no doubt similar to the one in Publishers’ Weekly for 14 August (“Valuable Books,” 8:348):

The Treasure Trove Series. The Choicest Humor by the great writers. Edited by R. H. Stoddard. Vol. i, Burlesque. Comprising the choicest humor of Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, G. W. Curtis, Arthur Sketchley, F. C. Burnand, Charles Lamb, Washington Irving, and others. Cloth, Square 16mo, $1.

The agreement that Gill had reached with Osgood’s lawyers permitted him to offer for sale the two thousand copies of Burlesque containing Clemens’s sketch, but it evidently prohibited him from advertising his name (23 July 75 to Osgood, n. 3click to open link). “Arthur Sketchley” was the pseudonym of George Rose (1817–82), an English dramatist and humorist whose numerous sketches expressed the views of an illiterate old woman called “Mrs. Brown.” Burnand was an English humorist and contributor to Punch whom Clemens had met in 1873 ( L5 , 532–33).

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