Details
CLEMENS, SAMUEL LANGHORNE ("Mark Twain"). Autograph letter signed ("Mark") TO WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS, Elmira, New York, 7 August l886. 2 page, large 8vo, on rectos of two leaves, now separated at central fold, evidence of old mounting on one edge of backs, faint stains.
"My Dear Howells: 'G. Grist' is George Iles. It is a good squib, but I don't know whether it is suitable or not. You will know. I suppose you pigeon-hole a thing sometimes against the final day of publication - a day most unlikely to arrive in our lifetime, I do assure you. Come to think, I am in an odd position for a valuable author. If I should write a book, I couldn't publish it [in] under ten years, if ever. It wouldn't do to go outside of my own shop -- people would say I didn't
believe in my own shop.
"I had a hand-shake with Mrs. Howells & S[deleted] --(that S reminds me that I called Pilla Susie). If I had met them an hour earlier I would have gone to Boston for a day. So it was lucky: You'd have lost a day...."
Apparently unpublished and not recorded in the Union Catalogue of Mark Twain Letters.
Provenance:
Apparently given by Howells to Dr. Albert J. Leffingwell of Brooklyn, in whose album of letters it was recently discovered.
"My Dear Howells: 'G. Grist' is George Iles. It is a good squib, but I don't know whether it is suitable or not. You will know. I suppose you pigeon-hole a thing sometimes against the final day of publication - a day most unlikely to arrive in our lifetime, I do assure you. Come to think, I am in an odd position for a valuable author. If I should write a book, I couldn't publish it [in] under ten years, if ever. It wouldn't do to go outside of my own shop -- people would say I didn't
believe in my own shop.
"I had a hand-shake with Mrs. Howells & S[deleted] --(that S reminds me that I called Pilla Susie). If I had met them an hour earlier I would have gone to Boston for a day. So it was lucky: You'd have lost a day...."
Apparently unpublished and not recorded in the Union Catalogue of Mark Twain Letters.
Provenance:
Apparently given by Howells to Dr. Albert J. Leffingwell of Brooklyn, in whose album of letters it was recently discovered.