7 September 1869 • (1st of 2) • Buffalo, N.Y. (MS: TxEU, UCCL 08611)
evening express $8 per annum. no. 14 east swan street.
weekly express $1.50 per annum.
Mrs. Wm Barstow, of Fredericksburg, Va., who applies to you for the Virginia agency of the book, is an old & valued friend of mine, and I want to you to manage to comply with her request, no matter if it can possibly be done. If you will make the appointment & send her all the books she wants & she fails to sell a book or pay a cent, I will be responsible & foot the bill out of my own pocket—for which promise this note may be retained as my guaranty. I have every confidence in her.1explanatory note
letter docketed: ✓ and Mark Twain | Sep 7/69
As the next letter makes clear, Bliss received this letter from Kate D. Barstow herself, to whom Clemens had sent it, presumably enclosed in a cover letter, now lost.
MS, Special Collections Library, University of Texas at El Paso (TxEU).
L3 , 339–340; Parke-Bernet 1946, lot 120, brief paraphrase.
The MS, inherited by Mrs. Robert I. Ingalls, Jr., of Birmingham, Ala., from her father, R. Jay Flick of Lenox, Mass., was sold to an unidentified buyer in 1946 (Parke-Bernet 1946, lot 120) and was eventually acquired by TxEU.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.