Samuel L. Clemens and Elisha Bliss, Jr.
31 July–7 August 1876 • Hartford, Conn.
and Elmira, N.Y. (MS, damage emended: CU-MARK, UCCL 12720 and UCLC 31928)
agents wanted for standard works.
office american publishing company,
no. 284 asylum street, hartford, conn.
e. bliss, jr., pres’t.branch offices,118 randolph st., chicago, ill.,
f. e. bliss, sec’y and treas’r.{38 west fourth st., cincinnati, ohio.,
Bliss, on a fragment cut from the top of page 75 of Tom Sawyer, with a line pointing to the text, now missing:1explanatory note
‸Chp 8
____ ‸
Do you want this style toⒶemendation
be uniform? if so sayⒶemendation
here & hereafter.2explanatory note
No, not uniform; follow copy; sometimes it is a quiet negative, & sometimes an exclamatorily vigorous one. The copy isn’t always the way I want it, though. The thing takes a different look in print from what I thought it would.3explanatory note
Bliss, on a second fragment, torn from the top of page 85:
Chap 9
Of course! alter wherever it dont
look right. We will follow copy &
make your alterations afterwards.
Very well, what better way is there than that? Do I give you one-fiftieth the trouble that Richardson did?4explanatory note
Bliss, on the back of the second fragment:
No. 2
I meant to say. Of course some things look differently set up, & need altering. Alter as you see fit & proper. We will follow copy first & make all alterations you wish afterwards. It is all right for you to do so.5explanatory note
Bliss, on the stationery to which the above fragments were pasted:
There aint any better way & that’s a good way enough. Confound my blunders why
did I not say my note was in reply to yours on 8th chap. & not let it 
go to you as an original
ironical remark, just what it was not intended to be! I meant to concur in what you
said about somethings looking
differently in print from what they do in Ms., & of the necessity of changing them & to say go ahead,
& make every thing neccessary;—it was all right & expected— Connected with yours on
Chp
8.th, as a reply, it seems to me I say it, disconnected & as an independent remark, it
might
mean something else which it should not. Enclosed is letter to you.6explanatory note
Richardson made more trouble over every page than you do in a whole book. Your model Ms is my standard to gauge others by, & must not be much better & cant be really.
S. L. Clemens Esq | Elmira | N. Y. return address: if not delivered in ten days, please return to american publishing company, 284 asylum
street, hartford,
conn. postmarked: hartford conn. aug 7 9pm
Clemens wrote his reply in ink directly below Bliss’s question. His comment, about the difference between a “quiet negative” and “an exclamatorily vigorous one,” suggests that he was explaining why he had punctuated the word “No” in dialog in two different ways. The angle of the line Bliss drew to the now missing text supports this conjecture. Lines 16–17 of page 75 (about halfway down the page) reads:
“Why, engaged to be married.”
“No.”
On page 74, however, the text reads:
“Do you love rats?”
“No! I hate them!”
When the first fragment of proof was pasted onto the letterhead, it obscured some or all of the letters in ‘38 west fourth., cincinnati, ohio.,’. Now that the fragment has been detached, it is no longer possible to know how much of the address was visible when the letter was sent. The printed dateline, on the line below (‘hartford, conn., . . . . . . . 187 . . . .’), was entirely covered. The fragment itself was damaged over time, so that several words and punctuation marks are wholly or partly missing. They have necessarily been supplied by the editors, who based their conjectures on the context.
MS, in ink and pencil, damage emended, CU-MARK.