Explanatory Notes        Apparatus Notes (Ⓐ)

Source: Columbia University, New York ([NNC])

Cue: "I fear that"

Source format: "MS"

Letter type: "[standard letter]"

Notes:

Last modified:

Revision History: Paradise, Kate

Published on MTPO: 2022

Print Publication:

This edited text supersedes the previously published text
MTPDocEd
To Moncure D. Conway
4 July 1876 • Elmira, N.Y. (MS, in pencil: NNC, UCCL 01347)
Elmira, N. Y. July 4.
My Dear Conway:

I fear that the book & the newspaper notice have miscarried. They have not arrived at Hartford or here.1explanatory note

Has Bliss shipped the pictures to you yet? I can’t find out from him.2explanatory note

Extracts from Sawyer keep appearing in N. Y.Ⓐemendation Evening Post—don’t know where they get them.3explanatory note

My American copyright is perfect.4explanatory note

No, I don’t think we shall want to use a cheap edition over here, at all. Our money lies wholly in the high-priced edition.

Yrs in haste (for dinner)

S. L. Clemens
Textual Commentary
Source text(s):

MS, in pencil, Conway Papers, NNC.

Previous Publication:

MicroPUL, reel 1.

Provenance:

The Conway Papers were acquired by NNC sometime after Conway’s death in 1907.

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

Explanatory Notes
1 

On 6 May Conway promised to send Clemens the “earliest” copy of the English edition of Tom Sawyer (see 27 May 1876 to Conwayclick to open link, n. 1). Soon after, in a letter that is now lost, Conway must have notified Clemens that a copy had been mailed, along with a first review (Merle Johnson 1935, 29).

2  Bliss had not answered Clemens’s query because he was ill (see 22 July 1876 to Blissclick to open link, n. 1). He did not send the electros of the Tom Sawyer illustrations to Conway until 7 July, nearly a month after Chatto and Windus had published their first edition, which was not illustrated. For their illustrated edition see 1 Aug 1876 to Conway, n. 3.
3 

The New York Evening Post of 28 June reprinted the fence-painting episode from chapter 2 of the English edition of Tom Sawyer, introducing it as “From Mark Twain’s unpublished book” (“How Tom Sawyer Got His Fence White-washed,” 1). No other extracts have been identified in the Evening Post. For the paper’s source, see 24 July 1876 to Conwayclick to open link, n. 1.

4 

See 16 Apr 1876 to Conwayclick to open link, n. 2.

Emendations and Textual Notes
Ⓐ  N. Y. ●  N | N. Y. corrected miswriting
Top