MTPDocEd
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?1
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. 3). “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).
Copyright © 2007–2026 The Regents of the University of California. Full copyright statement: https://www.marktwainproject.org/copyright.html
MS, Rogers Memorial Room, Houghton Library, Harvard University (MH-H).
L6 , 524–525.
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.