12–13 March 1869 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 11634)
enclosure:
Hartford, March
12, 1869.
I **** you, Livy!
And I ***** you, Livy!
DON’T TELL!1explanatory note
With its purple velvet case, Clemens’s porcelaintype formed a matched pair with the porcelaintype that Olivia had sent him in January (see 22 Jan 69 to OLLclick to open link). It reproduced a photograph taken by Edwin P. Kellogg, whose studio at 279 Main Street, in Hartford, Clemens had visited on 9 March. Afterward he promised Olivia that he would “send you the picture tomorrow” (10 Mar 69 to OLLclick to open link), but he did not write until 12 March, and he apparently did not then enclose it. Olivia’s docket numbers and his own testimony establish that at noon on 13 March he mailed her another letter from Hartford (number 55), which is now lost. He enclosed a recent letter from Mary Mason Fairbanks, as well as “half a dozen or so” illustrations cut from the proofs of his book (13 Mar 69 to OLLclick to open link). Those enclosures, also lost, would surely have afforded adequate padding for this porcelaintype, with its message penciled on the case-lining.
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L3 , 165–166.
see Samossoud Collection, p. 586.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.