Explanatory Notes        Apparatus Notes (Ⓐ)

Source: Chicago Tribune, 1878.01.06 ([])

Cue: "I am tied to the treadmill"

Source format: "Transcript"

Letter type: "[standard letter]"

Notes:

Last modified: 2018-09-26T16:33:06

Revision History: VF 2007-12-04 | vf 2018-09-26 date changed to 15? From 1 to 15

Published on MTPO: 2022

Print Publication:

This edited text supersedes the previously published text
MTPDocEd
To the Chicago Union Veteran Club
15 December? 1877 • Hartford, Conn. (Chicago Tribune, 6 January 1878, UCCL 13079)

I am tied to the treadmill, hand &Ⓐemendation foot, hard at work, on what seems an interminable book, so I must not think of lecturing,1explanatory note—though I assure you that I would be considerably gladder to have talked for the Veterans than for any other institution in the country, if I were still on the lecturing war path.2explanatory note

Yours truly,
S. L. ClemensⒶemendation.
Textual Commentary
Source text(s):

“Mark Twain Won’t Lecture,” Chicago Tribune, 6 January 1878, 8.

Previous Publication:

“Mark Twain Won’t Come,” Chicago Inter-Ocean, 7 January 1878, 3.

Explanatory Notes
1 Clemens was working on The Prince and the Pauper, which he had begun in September, and on his novel Simon Wheeler, Detective (12 Nov 1877 to Nast, n. 4; 17? Nov 1877 to Aldrich, n. 1). Since there is no evidence to suggest that he considered either book to be “interminable,” his comment may have been a polite excuse for declining the club’s invitation. The date assigned to this letter is highly conjectural. It is based largely on the fact that on 28 December Clemens told Howells that he had not “done a stroke of work since the Atlantic dinner” (on 17 December). He could have written to the Union Veteran Club earlier in December, or very early in January 1878.
2 

The Chicago Tribune of 6 January 1878 published this letter with the following introduction:

Mark Twain Won’t Lecture

The Union Veteran Club, through its Lecture Committee, recently wrote to Mark Twain to induce him to come to Chicago and give a lecture before the Association for the benefit of its relief fund. The following is his reply.

The Chicago Union Veteran Club was formally constituted on 13 December 1876, and by the spring of 1878 its membership had grown to over three hundred and fifty men. On 17 October 1877 the club appointed a committee to arrange for lectures at its meetings (Chicago Tribune: “Chicago,” 14 Dec 1876, 2; “Ward Meetings,” 18 Oct 1877, 8; “Gen. Shields,” 12 May 1878, 5).

Emendations and Textual Notes
Ⓐ  & ●  and
Ⓐ  Clemens ●  Clemens
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