Details
CLEMENS, SAMUEL LANGHORNE ("Mark Twain"). Autograph letter signed ("Saml") to his wife, Livy, "In hotel-car, 30 miles West of Philadelphia, 11:30 Sunday morning," [9 November l894?]. 2 pages, 8vo, in pencil, with original postmarked envelope addressed by Clemens and bearing additional jottings on verso.
"This is a mean place to write in, Livy darling, so I will only attempt a line. Shall telegraph you from Pittsburg, which we are approaching. Dan [ ] says the Scrap Book is booming -- can't fill the orders. I've got that engraving invention fixed so I can take it & pay for it when I get back. This is a very nice car. Slept pretty well last night...."
"That engraving invention" is a reference to yet another mechanical contrivance in which Twain unwisely but enthusiastically became an investor. In the case the device was "Kaolotype," a chalk-plate process for making printing plates: "The Kaolotype Engraving Company, of 104 Fulton Street, New York, listed S.L. Clemens as President. This characteristic venture, the direct antecedent of Clemens' disastrous investment in the Paige typesetter, was to end in financial loss, litigation, and, worst of all, an inescapable involvement with business affairs" (Kaplan, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain, pp.233-234).
"This is a mean place to write in, Livy darling, so I will only attempt a line. Shall telegraph you from Pittsburg, which we are approaching. Dan [ ] says the Scrap Book is booming -- can't fill the orders. I've got that engraving invention fixed so I can take it & pay for it when I get back. This is a very nice car. Slept pretty well last night...."
"That engraving invention" is a reference to yet another mechanical contrivance in which Twain unwisely but enthusiastically became an investor. In the case the device was "Kaolotype," a chalk-plate process for making printing plates: "The Kaolotype Engraving Company, of 104 Fulton Street, New York, listed S.L. Clemens as President. This characteristic venture, the direct antecedent of Clemens' disastrous investment in the Paige typesetter, was to end in financial loss, litigation, and, worst of all, an inescapable involvement with business affairs" (Kaplan, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain, pp.233-234).