26 December 1870 • Buffalo, N.Y. (Transcript and MS: New York Tribune, 29 Dec 70, and DLC, UCCL 02791)
MarkⒶemendation Twain will publish a burlesque autobiography, in pamphlet form, in a few days, through Sheldon & Co.
I would like it very much if you would put the above item into your column of littleⒶemendation floating paragraphs & general notes. As the thing is not known to anybody, it is a fair & legitimate item of literary news, & so it is not unpardonable in the subscriber to ask you to print it.1explanatory note
Merry Christmas & a happy New Year to you! I have had the one, in unexampled magnificence, & so am ready to hail the other.
Was exceedingly sorry I did not get to dine with you—& scarce even see you. I sent you a voluminous explanatory telegram just before taking the cars—which I hope you rec’d.2explanatory note
Reid obliged, cutting Clemens’s “item” from this letter to use as printer’s copy for the “Personal” column of the New York Tribune of 29 December 1870 (4). The text included here has been restored from the paper, although it may not be exactly as Clemens originally had it. On 1 January 1871, Reid wrote to him: “I gave your paragraph out and think it has appeared. I’m heartily glad to be able to render a service—if so trifling a thing deserves that name” (DLC). As Clemens and Reid intended, the announcement was immediately copied by other papers, for example: the Elmira Advertiser (“City and Neighborhood,” 30 Dec 70, 4); the Buffalo Courier (“Personal,” 31 Dec 70, 1); the Buffalo Express (“It is mentioned . . . ,” 31 Dec 70, 2); and the Hartford Courant (“Personal,” 31 Dec 70, 2). Unfortunately, the publicity was premature, for on 29 December Isaac E. Sheldon wrote to Clemens:
I think the book will do quite as well 6 or 8 weeks from this time as it could now. During the month of Jan almost every bookseller is engaged on his inventory. I think however that it is best to get the book ready just as fast as possible; even if we hold them for a time after they are all made. There always are delays in getting a book ready. The engravings are promised for the end of this week. It will be next Tuesday [3 January 1871] before we can put them into the stereotypers hands & begin on the plates. (CU-MARK)
Sheldon promised to send an advertising circular “to every bookseller”—as soon as he and Clemens agreed to “the exact day of publication & the price.” On Saturday, 31 December, ahead of schedule, he sent Clemens “proofs of all the cuts,” that is, the electrotyped illustrations (CU-MARK). Setting a price was a matter of some contention, however (27 Jan 71 to Sheldonclick to open link). Mark Twain’s (Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance was finally published in March 1871.
On 15 December Reid had written to Clemens at the Albemarle Hotel:
I have been waiting all the week for you to make your appearance, and here it is Thursday night. Please you send me word by the bearer that you will dine with me tomorrow (Friday) evening at half past 6 o’clock at the Union League Club. If you will say yes, I’ll have one or two friends, not more, to meet us over a quiet bottle of wine. (DLC)
Clemens’s “voluminous” telegram in reply is not known to survive. In his 1 January 1871 letter, Reid remarked: “I got your dispatch in time to send word to a friend or two I had asked not to come. Better luck next time” (DLC). The Union League Club was founded in 1863 to support the North during the Civil War and afterward turned its attention to political and social reform. Its headquarters were currently “in a fine mansion on the corner of Twenty-sixth Street and Madison Avenue” (Lossing, 748–52).
Transcript, “Personal,” New York Tribune, 29 Dec 70, 4, is copy-text for ‘Mark . . . Co.’ (288.7–8), and MS, Whitelaw Reid Papers, Library of Congress (DLC), is copy-text for the remainder. The top half of MS page 1 is missing, presumably having been cut away by Reid and sent to the Tribune’s compositor.
L4 , 288–289.
The MS for the Tribune squib is not known to survive. The Whitelaw Reid Papers (part of the Papers of the Reid Family) were donated to DLC between 1953 and 1957 by Helen Rogers Reid (Mrs. Ogden Mills Reid).
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.