28 January 1876 • (Typed transcription by or for Albert Bigelow Paine, CU-MARK, and Bangs and Company catalog, 24 January 1902, lot 82, UCCL 09883)
Could you quietly jam this item into print somewhere without telling where you get the information?Ⓐemendation
“MarkⒶemendation Twain is writing a five-act drama, the scene of which is laid partly in San Francisco,Ⓐemendation &Ⓐemendation partly in the Nevada silver minesⒶemendation. The chief character in the piece is peculiarly American.”Ⓐemendation 1explanatory note
I have a reason for wanting to setⒶemendation this item afloatⒶemendation.2explanatory note
I am still dragging along. Sometimes I think I am nearly well &Ⓐemendation then again I findⒶemendation I ain’t.Ⓐemendation So the precious days slide along &Ⓐemendation are lost. My book lies idle,3explanatory note—Ⓐemendationbut I am building it &Ⓐemendation the play too,Ⓐemendation in my own mind, though I want to talk with Mackay by & by, about doing the actual work of dramatization.,4explanatory note
Do stop here with me every time you pass through—will you?
An incomplete text of this letter, drawn solely from the Bangs auction catalog (also used here), was published mistakenly as “25 February 1874? to Unidentified” in Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 6 ( L6 , 51). A more complete source (still not the original) given to the Mark Twain Papers in 2003 showed the actual date and identified the addressee as James Redpath, the journalist and social reformer who had founded the Boston Lyceum Bureau in 1868 (20 Apr 1869 to Redpath, L3 , 199 n. 1). Clemens was not in fact “writing a five-act drama” but only planning one, to be written for the stage by another hand. The play in question has not been further identified. Sometime in the first half of 1876 Clemens sent a scenario for a drama to novelist and playwright Charles Reade; in August he received this reply (CU-MARK):
2 Albert Terrace
Knightsbridge
Aug 6London
My dear Sir,
I beg to acknowledge yours detailing plot. It is full of Brains. but impossible on the stage. and not popular. The public want to see the plain realities. of life. reflected on the boards. Actors acting actors is a bad card. But in a story, you would have more scope and could carry out your idea, which is new, and true, and very ingenious. Take a ream of paper and dont waste refinements and delicate nuances on actors.
Yours sincerely
Reade
Should you have ever so dramatic a subject I could hardly advise you to share it with me. Managers here are illiterate beasts. They never read a book, and I dont think there is one of them that would read a play, of mine, or recommended by me. They stick to a little ro[u]nd of scribblers who drink grog with them, or write criticism as they call it in the journals
It was the misreading of the first sentence of Reade's letter (“detecting” for “detailing”) that led Franklin Rogers to mistakenly conclude that Clemens sent Reade a “plot outline” for Cap'n Simon Wheeler, The Amateur Detective. A Light Tragedy, the play he wrote in a few weeks in the summer of 1877 ( S&B , 216-17; SLC 1877f).
2Redpath complied with Clemens's request; this squib (or variations on it) appeared in papers nationwide in February 1876.
The “idle” book probably was the unidentified work Clemens had mentioned to Howells in late 1875 ( L6 : 4 Nov 1875, 582, 585 n. 9; 23 Nov 1875, 595).
Probably actor-playwright James Morrison Steele MacKaye (1842-94). As a lecturer, MacKaye was managed by Redpath's Lyceum Bureau (Lyceum 1875, 3).
All variants between the source texts are reported below. Adopted readings followed by ‘(MTP)’ are editorial emendations of the source readings.
All variants between the source texts are reported here. The readings identified by the siglum ‘MTP’ are editorial emendations of the source readings made because none is deemed correct by itself.
The text is based on two transcripts, one typed and one printed, each of which derives independently from the MS.
25 Feb 1874? to Unidentified, L6 , 51, partial publication; the addressee and date were not known until the Paine transcript was donated to CU-MARK.
See Paine Transcripts in Description of Provenanceclick to open link. The letter was offered for sale in 1902 by Bangs and Company, New York.