Lot 29
29
CLEMENS, SAMUEL LANGHORNE. Incomplete autograph letter signed ("Sam") to his widowed sister in St. Louis, Pamela Clemens Moffett, [New York, ca. 1 December 1868], 2 pages, 4to, and 2 pages, oblong thin 8vo, on both sides of two sheets, the quarto sheet (printed and lined letterhead of Slote, Woodman & Co., Blank Book Manufactures, in New York) comprising pages 3-4 of the letter (the final pages), fine contents in which Clemens declares his love for Livy and his hope to marry her: "...Now -- Private -- Keep it to yourself, my sister -- do not even hint it, to any one -- I make no exceptions. I can trust you. I love -- I worship -- Olivia L. Langdon, of Elmira -- & she loves me. When I am permanently settled -- & when I am a Christian -- & when I have demonstrated that I have a good, steady, reliable character, her parents will withdraw their objections, & she may marry me -- I say she will -- I intend she shall...For in her eyes...Livy Langdon is perfection itself. Mind -- no word of this to any body..." This is the earliest of any Clemens letter in the Chester L. Davis Collection offered by Christie's. Published in The Love Letters of Mark Twain, ed. Dixon Wecter (New York: Harper, 1949), pp. 28-29; Fragment of an autograph letter signed ("Sam") to the Clemens family, [Elmira, ca. mid-April 1869], 2 pages, 12mo, in red ink on both sides of a sheet of Langdon family stationary (embossed with an "L"), comprising the final two pages of an eight-page letter: "...My head is so busted up with endeavors to get my own plans straight, that I am hardly in a condition to fix up anybody else's. (Livy and I sit for hours) I don't know whether I am going to California in May -- I don't know whether I want to lecture next season or not -- I don't know whether I want to yield to [Petroleum V.] Nasby's persuasions & go with him on the Toledo Blade -- I don't know any thing..." Published in The Love Letters of Mark Twain, pp. 84-85; Fragment of an autograph letter signed ("Sam") to his sister Pamela Clemens Moffet, [n.p., n.d.],4 pages, 8vo, in pencil on both sides of two sheets, comprising pages 9-12 of a 12-page letter, writing of Livy and her adopted sister Susie Crane and discussing his clothes and manuscripts left at the Clemens household: "...Don't [trouble?] the manuscripts any more than you can help -- but search out & send me my account of the Deluge (it is a diary kept by Shem). There are 70 or 80 pages of it. It is of no account now, but I shall make it so before I am done with it -- There is substance there for a telling article..." Probably the missing first eight pages are printed in Mark Twain's Letters, ed. A.B. Paine (New York, 1917), pp. 160-162. (3)

Details
CLEMENS, SAMUEL LANGHORNE. Incomplete autograph letter signed ("Sam") to his widowed sister in St. Louis, Pamela Clemens Moffett, [New York, ca. 1 December 1868], 2 pages, 4to, and 2 pages, oblong thin 8vo, on both sides of two sheets, the quarto sheet (printed and lined letterhead of Slote, Woodman & Co., Blank Book Manufactures, in New York) comprising pages 3-4 of the letter (the final pages), fine contents in which Clemens declares his love for Livy and his hope to marry her: "...Now -- Private -- Keep it to yourself, my sister -- do not even hint it, to any one -- I make no exceptions. I can trust you. I love -- I worship -- Olivia L. Langdon, of Elmira -- & she loves me. When I am permanently settled -- & when I am a Christian -- & when I have demonstrated that I have a good, steady, reliable character, her parents will withdraw their objections, & she may marry me -- I say she will -- I intend she shall...For in her eyes...Livy Langdon is perfection itself. Mind -- no word of this to any body..." This is the earliest of any Clemens letter in the Chester L. Davis Collection offered by Christie's. Published in The Love Letters of Mark Twain, ed. Dixon Wecter (New York: Harper, 1949), pp. 28-29; Fragment of an autograph letter signed ("Sam") to the Clemens family, [Elmira, ca. mid-April 1869], 2 pages, 12mo, in red ink on both sides of a sheet of Langdon family stationary (embossed with an "L"), comprising the final two pages of an eight-page letter: "...My head is so busted up with endeavors to get my own plans straight, that I am hardly in a condition to fix up anybody else's. (Livy and I sit for hours) I don't know whether I am going to California in May -- I don't know whether I want to lecture next season or not -- I don't know whether I want to yield to [Petroleum V.] Nasby's persuasions & go with him on the Toledo Blade -- I don't know any thing..." Published in The Love Letters of Mark Twain, pp. 84-85; Fragment of an autograph letter signed ("Sam") to his sister Pamela Clemens Moffet, [n.p., n.d.],4 pages, 8vo, in pencil on both sides of two sheets, comprising pages 9-12 of a 12-page letter, writing of Livy and her adopted sister Susie Crane and discussing his clothes and manuscripts left at the Clemens household: "...Don't [trouble?] the manuscripts any more than you can help -- but search out & send me my account of the Deluge (it is a diary kept by Shem). There are 70 or 80 pages of it. It is of no account now, but I shall make it so before I am done with it -- There is substance there for a telling article..." Probably the missing first eight pages are printed in Mark Twain's Letters, ed. A.B. Paine (New York, 1917), pp. 160-162. (3)