Here is the “Blindfold Novelettes.” You will see that I have altered it as we
contemplated. The most prominent features in the story being the Murder & the Marriage,
the one name will aptly fit all the
versions. Then the thing will read thus in the headings:
“A Murder & a Marriage. Story No.1, (or 2, or 3, &c)—Mr. Harte’s
Version of it.”
You could add to this screed of mine an editorial bracket to this effect. —(over)
“Messrs. Howells, Trowbridge, &c., have agreed to furnish versions of
this story, but it is also desirable that any who please shall ‸ furnish versions of it also, whether the writers
be of literary fame or not.3explanatory note The MSS offered will be judged upon their merits & accepted or declined accordingly.
The
stories should be only 8 or 10 Atlantic pages long.—Ed. Atlantic.”
Something of that sort, you know, th to keep people of from imagining that because my name is attached to the
proposition, the thing is merely intended for a joke.4explanatory note
”The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut” (SLC 1876h). For an indication of Howells’s suggestions
for revision, see 3 Apr 1876 to Howellsclick to open link.
Previously it was believed that Clemens wrote this letter on 1 May 1876 (MTHL, 1:135). But he clearly wrote it just after Howells and his seven-year-old son,
John (Bua), left Hartford after visiting from Saturday evening, 11 March, through Monday
morning, 13 March. That visit had been arranged by: a letter of early March from Olivia
Clemens to Elinor Howells; a letter of 5 March from Howells to Clemens; a telegram
of around 6 March from Clemens to Howells; a postcard of around 6 or 7 March from
Howells. Only Howells’s part of the
correspondence has been found (CU-MARK):
UCLC32299
editorial office of the atlantic monthly. the riverside press, cambridge, mass.
March 5, 1876.
My dear Clemens:
My wife has your wife’s very kind letter, for which she sends her love, and bids me
say with tears
that she is a thousand times grateful, but that it’s quite impossible for her to leave
home at this time. She will hold the
invitation in terrorem over Mrs. Clemens, and that in the meantime your hospitality may not go defrauded
she
lets me ask if I may bring Bua with me. He wont make you any trouble I can promise,
and he can sleep with me, so that his habitual
nightmare must not disturb the other slumberers. May I?
Yours ever
W. D. Howells.
Howells’s postcard of 6 or 7 March was undated and unpostmarked;
evidently it was mailed in an envelope, which is now lost (CU-MARK):
UCLC32300
Your telegraph received (in my absence, with the usual terror.)
John and I expect to leave Boston at 3 o’clock Saturday afternoon, and reach Hartford
at 7.
W.D.H.
Back at home in Cambridge, Howells wrote the following letter (CU-MARK), which probably crossed in the mail with Clemens’s present one:
UCLC32303
Dear Clemens:
Here’s the letter about copyright, which please return.
Bua and I did have a good time, and he has flourished your princely hospitality and orient pearl over Winny
at a
pitiless rate.
The “great globe,” etc., is in the Tempest, Scene I, Act 4., Prospero speaking.
Best regards and Mrs. Howells’s love to the ladies.
Yours ever
W.D.H.
The letter on copyright has not been recovered. Winny (Winifred) was Howells’s twelve-year-old daughter
(Howells 1979a, 94, 297, 299 n. 1).
During Howells’s visit Clemens had broached his scheme for several writers to
each write a story with the same plot. The enclosed “screed,” a proposed announcement
of the work, is not known
to survive: on 2 April Howells sent it on to Thomas Bailey Aldrich (see 26 Apr 1876 to Howellsclick to open link, n. 8). John Townsend Trowbridge (1827-1916) was a journalist, novelist, and poet.
Howells and the Atlantic Monthly weren’t Clemens’s first choices to promote his literary idea. In late January or
early February, in a letter (now lost) dictated to his unidentified stenographer,
he had proposed it to Mary Mapes Dodge, editor of St. Nicholas magazine for children. She had replied (CU-MARK):
It was a delight to see your name at the end of a letter in new handwriting the other
day, for I very much wish an article from you for our bookmagazine—a Mark Twain article—but I fear that this particular MS. can’t be made available
for St. Nicholas— The idea is a good one, & the but the skeleton story you give, though just as full
of fun as can be, & capital for grown-ups, is not one that I like to ask the children
to fill out— The absurdity
& humor of the thing would not be recognized by them—but they would set to work by
hundreds to write a bloody
& sensational novellette that would out-do the dime novels— They would spend days
& days upon it,
concentrating their young minds upon dreadful details of & feel that they were doing a great & serious
work for St. Nicholas. As I know by experience, they would take the idea literally,
quite overlooking the comico-burlesque
undercurrent—and we should be really putting a premium upon the producing of just
such stuff in the way of child-reading
thatas we are straining every nerve to suppress & crowd out of existence— I write my idea
plainly because
I believe you’ll see its force and understand me—
BUT, we must have something from you! I look upon this kind offer as a sort of lien—
Can’t
you tell the boys of some funny supposed personal experience in the manly sports—yachting, boating,
private skating, bas ball playing, firing at a mark—pic-nic-ing—private theatricals
& high tragedy—horsemanship—breaking a colt or anything that hasd fun in it? St
Nicholas has girl and boy readers of from 8 yrs to 18— We try to give them good &
refined reading & to
put in all the fun we can— Should you send a paper for the young folk I need not say
that we can carry out your ideas in
regard to illustration— Wouldn’t there be good material in “A Boys Vacation,” supposed
to
be your personal experience in trying to enjoy to the utmost a month’s or a week’s
holiday in the summer
under difficulties? It could be anywhere from 1 page to five in length We could illustrate it with humorous
pictures & put it in our JulyAugust number. In that case the Mss should be at hand by middle of March or April—
You see I’m not willing to let you go, now that you have walked into my parlor— With
thanks for your remembrance and “a lively sense of favors to come,” I am
That is, early proofsheets of
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
, which Howells was to use in writing his review of the book. (By 9 April Clemens himself had received
only two chapters.) Howells acknowledged them with a postcard postmarked 20 March
(CU-MARK):
UCLC32310
editorial office of the atlantic monthly. the riverside press, cambridge, mass.
MS, MH-H, shelf mark bMS Am 1784 (98).
MTHL , 1:135, misdated 1 May 1876.
See Howells Letters in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.