10 June 1879 • 1st of 2 • Paris, France (Transcripts by Albert Bigelow Paine and Dana S. Ayer:
CU-MARK and WU-MU, UCCL 01664)
AllⒶemendation right—have just written Perkins that Tom Sawyer fills the Riley contract, & instructedⒶemendation him to have the Co.Ⓐemendation endorse all my contractsⒶemendation as completed, & deduct $2,000 from copyrightsⒶemendation now due, in satisfaction of the Riley debt.
WhatⒶemendation I wanted the “yes or no” for, was on the artist’s Ⓐemendation workⒶemendation—of course I did not care where the plates were made. I have not a doubt that you can beat this French work which looks veryⒶemendation shabby to me.
Dan Slote has the best process in the world, but I suppose weⒶemendation can’t use that, because (in his process) the pictures are not transferredⒶemendation, but drawn on a hard mud surface. It looks like excellent wood engraving,Ⓐemendation whereas all these other processes are miserably weak & shammy. HowⒶemendation clean & strong the Innocents pictures are!
Yes, will leave space for some pictures to be drawn at home, as you suggest. I shall have one full-pager made here by a fine wood engraverⒶemendation if he will cut it for anythingⒶemendation under $100,—Ⓐemendationotherwise will send it over & let Dan Slote’s artist try hisⒶemendation hand on it. It is a thing which I manufactured by pasting a popular comic picture into the middle of a celebrated Biblical one—shall attribute it to Titian. It needs to be engraved by a master.
All variants among the source texts are reported below. The adopted reading followed by ‘(MTP)’ is an editorial emendation of the source reading.
No copy-text. The text is based on three transcripts. The first of two by Albert Bigelow Paine (Tr1—an original copy) was apparently typed directly from the manuscript, after which Paine must have marked the carbon (now lost) with both corrections from the manuscript and his own editorial changes. The second transcript (Tr2—of which both the original and carbon survive) was made from that marked copy and incorporates those revisions. Another handwritten transcript by Dana Ayer (Tr3) was later independently derived from the manuscript.
MTLP , 116–17.
See Paine Transcripts in Description of Provenance; see Brownell Collection in Description of Provenance for information about the Ayer transcript.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.