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PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN
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CLEMENS, Samuel. Autograph manuscript signed (“Mark Twain”) containing two draft works by Clemens, the first a letter to the Sacramento Union, 13 August 1866, and the second a draft of “An Inquiry About Insurances” (1866). Together 4 pages on an integral 4to sheet, folded to make four-sides, 8vo, in pencil. The dispatch to the Sacramento Union occupying the first page, the insurance satire the remaining three-pages. [With:] CLEMENS. Signed card “Mark Twain,” n.d. 1p., oblong card (2 ½ x 3 ½in.), traces of mounting on verso.
An interesting survival from Clemens’s sojourn to the Hawaiian Islands in 1866, which was commissioned by the Sacramento Union. He uses this single sheet of paper to draft both a dispatch to the paper on Hawaiian affairs, and to begin a satirical sketch on the insurance industry. The dispatch to the Union reads: “Private. San Francisco, Monday Aug 13. Arrived in Smyrniote this afternoon. go up to Sacramento tomorrow. Mark Twain. / Honolulu Items.—Through a note just received from our correspondent at Honolulu, dated July 19, we learn that the aged father of the reigning King of the Hawaiian Islands, and Mrs. Rooke, the mother of Queen Emma, were both lying at the point of death. H. H. the Governess of Hawaii was also very ill, perhaps even dangerously so. The Hawaiian Legislature was still in session. The Smyrniote & the Comet both sailed for San Francisco of on the 19th of July.”
Clemens then turned the note over and began a wonderful comic piece about the insurance industry, which would later be published as “An Inquiry About Insurances.” “Do you allow the same money on a dog-bite that you do on an earthquake?...Supposing you answer to be affirmative, would you charge any more for a San Francisco earthquake than for those that prevail in places that are bettered anchored down?...You don’t appear to make any particular mention of taking risks on Blighted Affections. But if you should conclude to do a little business in that line you might put me down for 6 or 7 chances…I have been blighted a good deal in my time.” The dispatch to the Union was not published by the paper, but is included in Branch, ed., Mark Twain’s Letters, 1853–1866. “An Inquiry” appeared in Mark Twain’s Sketches and has been reproduced many times since. Together 3 items.