7 September 1869 • (1st of 2) • Buffalo, N.Y. (MS: TxEU, UCCL 08611)
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 SLC to Elisha Bliss, Jr., 7 Sept 1869 (2nd of 2)click to open link, 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).
Parke-Bernet 1946, lot 120, brief paraphrase; L3 , 339–340.
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.