Explanatory Notes        Apparatus Notes (Ⓐ)

Source: New York Public Library, Albert A. and Henry W. Berg Collection, New York ([NN-BGC])

Cue: "Just as soon"

Source format: "MS"

Letter type: "[standard letter]"

Notes:

Last modified:

Revision History: AB

Published on MTPO: 2007

Print Publication: v6

MTPDocEd
To William Dean Howells
13 July 1875 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: NN-B, UCCL 02492)
July 13.
My Dear Howells:1explanatory note

Just as soon as you consented I realized all the atrocity of my request, & straightway blushed & weakened. I telegraphed my theatrical agent to come here & carry off the MS & copy it.2explanatory note

But I will gladly send it to you if you will do as follows: dramatize it if you perceive that you can, & take, for your remuneration, half of the first $6,000 which I receive for its representation on the stage. You could alter the plot entirely, if you chose. I would help in the work, most cheerfully, after you had arranged the plot. I have my eye upon two young girls who can play “Tom” & “Huck.” I believe a good deal of a drama can be made of it. ComeⒶemendation—can’t you tackle this in the odd hours of your vacation?—or later, if you prefer?

I do wish you could come down once more before your holiday. I’d give anything!

Twichell heard from. Has caught his first 20-pounder.3explanatory note

I’m looking for the music along, but it hasn’t arrived yet.4explanatory note

Mrs. Clemens is doing tolerably well, only. Susie well again.5explanatory note

Yrs Ever
Mark
Textual Commentary
13 July 1875 • To William Dean Howells • Hartford, Conn. • UCCL 02492
Source text(s):

MS, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations (NN-B).

Previous Publication:

L6 , 509–11; Paine 1912, 252, and MTB , 1:548, excerpt; Paine 1917, 786, and MTL , 1:260, with omission; MTHL , 1:95.

Provenance:

see Howells Letters in Description of Provenance.

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

Explanatory Notes
1 

Clemens answered the following letter (CU-MARK), which answered his unrecovered reply to Howells’s letter of 6 July (5 July 75 to Howells, n. 8click to open link):

UCLC32195

editorial office of the atlantic monthly. the riverside press, cambridge, mass.

July 8, 1875.

Dear Clemens:

I can’t. I say it with tears in my eyes, for I do have such good times with you. And what grieves me more is that we shall not be in Cambridge from Aug. 1 till Oct. 1. We go into the Country at Shirley Village, Mass., on the 1st prox., and stay there till mid-September, when we hope to go to Quebec, for the rest of that month. But all this needn’t prevent your running up with Mrs. Clemens in October, when we shall be as glad to see you as possible.

Meantime, don’t forget to let me see that Ms., as you promised.

Yours ever

W. D. Howells.

The Howellses planned to stay in Shirley Village, a Shaker community about thirty-five miles northwest of Cambridge, and then travel to Quebec to visit Howells’s father, the American consul there (Howells 1979, 100 n. 2; 21 June 74 to Howells, n. 2click to open link).

2 

Clemens hired H. W. Bergen, who traveled on tour with Raymond and kept a record of the proceeds and expenses of his performances, to make a copy of the Tom Sawyer manuscript. It was not until early November, however, that Clemens gave it to Howells to review (Bergen to SLC, 15 May 75, 22 May 75, CtHMTH; MTB , 1:518–19; amanuensis copy of the MS, almost certainly in Bergen’s hand, at MoFlM; 4 Nov 75 to Howells, n. 7click to open link).

3 

Between 30 June and 17 July Twichell took a “grand salmon fishing trip” to New Brunswick, Canada, “at the invitation and at the expense” of Dean Sage; on 6 July he wrote ecstatically to his wife, Harmony, about this first catch (Twichell, 1:111–15; Sage). Clemens had apparently seen or had a report of this letter, for there is no evidence that Twichell wrote directly to him.

4 

Evidently the music that Howells had intended to enclose in his letter of 6 July.

5 

Howells replied (CU-MARK):

UCLC32197

editorial office of the atlantic monthly. the riverside press, cambridge, mass.

July 19, 1875.

My dear Clemens:

It’s very pleasant to have you propose my working in any sort of concert with you; and if the $3000 were no temptation, it is a temptation to think of trying to do you a favor. But I couldn’t do it, and if I could, it wouldn’t be a favor to dramatize your story. In fact I don’t see how anybody can do that but yourself. I could never find the time, for one thing. My story is coming into the daylight, but when I get it done—say Sept. 14,—I’m going off to Quebec on a two weeks’ rest, and then I’m going to tackle a play of my own, which is asking to be written. Besides all this, I couldn’t enter into the spirit of another man’s work sufficiently to do the thing you propose.

—I’m going up to Shirley to-morrow to see if the last touches have been put to the preparation of our quarters there, and my wife will probably follow on Thursday. Her health has been most wretched all summer, and we earnestly hope for benefit from this change. We are both very sorry to hear your half-hearted report of Mrs. Clemens. Newport, I should think would do her good. You’ll find my friend Col. Waring a capital fellow, and most usefully learned in everything a stranger wants to ask about Newport.

Yours ever

W. D. Howells.

Howells’s story was “Private Theatricals,” published in the Atlantic from November 1875 through May 1876. The play may have been The Parlor Car, completed by mid-February 1876 (see 29 Oct 74 to Daly, n. 4click to open link, and 5 July 75 to Howells, n. 1click to open link; see also 14 July 75 to Waringclick to open link).

Emendations and Textual Notes
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