Explanatory Notes        Apparatus Notes ()

Source: Sotheby’s, New York, N.Y ([])

Cue: "It is easier—& nearly always"

Source format: "Sales catalog"

Letter type: "inscription"

Notes:

Last modified:

Revision History: Larson, Brian

Published on MTPO: 2023

Print Publication:

MTPDocEd
To Unidentified
April 1883 • Hartford, Conn. (Sales catalog: Sotheby’s, 17 and 18 June 1992, lot 17, UCCL 12614)

Clemens, Samuel Langhorne. Autograph quotation signed (“Mark Twain”), 1 page (7 x 5¼ in.; 181 x 133 mm), [Greenville, Illinois], April 1883, on stationery of the Alpha Literary Society; some very slight soiling, matted and framed with an image of Clemens


an apt maxim. Clemens writes: “It is easier—& nearly always more judicious—to tell seven lies than make one explanation. . . .”

Textual Commentary
Source text(s):

Sales catalog, Sotheby’s, 17 and 18 June 1992, lot 17. The quotation was apparently written on a piece of stationery sent by the Alpha Literary Society of Greenville, Illinois.

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