19 July 1875 • Hartford, Conn. (Transcript and paraphrase: Parke-Bernet 1963,
lot 34, and two others, UCCL 09485)
paraphrase: The dated note . . . is addressed to “Dear Madam”, thanking her for a Ⓐemendation ticket, which he unfortunately will not be able to use.Ⓐemendation I send copies of my books for the Library Ⓐemendation & hope your enterprise will meet with a generous success.Ⓐemendation 1explanatory note
The addressee’s name is provided by the 1 January 1876 statement of Clemens’s account with the American Publishing Company, which indicates that on 20 July 1875 a “Set of books” bound in cloth was ordered for Foster (not further identified), at a cost of $3.60 plus $1.00 for “Express on same” (APC 1876). Included were The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, and The Gilded Age.
No copy-text. The text is based on three transcripts and paraphrases, each of which derives independently from the MS:
Each catalog contains quoted or paraphrased text, or descriptive information, not present in the others. None of the texts is complete, however. P2 describes the letter as “1½ pp., 8vo,” and P3 describes it as “2 pp. 12mo,” whereas the surviving text would certainly have fit on a single page.
L6 , 514.
Adopted readings followed by ‘(C)’ are editorial emendations of the source readings.