Vol 3 Section 1125

Addenda & Errata For Volume II (1886-1896)

1061

Thank you very much for the circular. What a pity poor Josh Billings is dead. He always wanted an office,

      now he has lost the chance of being President of that Society / Truly Yours / SL Clemens [eBay item #320102336553, Apr. 25, 2007 by Goldberg Coins & Collectibles].

September 8, 1886 addition – Bacheller & Johnson; America’s first newspaper syndicate. See insert of logo.

September 28, 1886 addition – Sam wrote to Mrs. Parker (not further identified) dating it only Sept. 28. It may have been 1887, but this year seems more likely, given the load of war books at this time with Webster & Co.

Dear Mr. Parker: / No, I don’t like to read MS books; they make me swear. And I can’t publish a story—or other work—because we are full of military literature for several years yet. / I greet you again with pleasure; you were a good audience all by yourself. / Truly Yours / SL Clemens [Bonham’s auction Nov. 23, 2004; sale 13058, Lot 5136].

Note: This may be Mrs. Edwin Pond Parker or, less likely the wife of Prof. Joseph Parker, who spoke in Hartford on Oct. 13, 1887, since Sam had clearly talked with the woman before this letter.

November, 1886 addition – eBay Item number: 110375489327 seen in April, 2009 reveals an excerpt titled, “The Pony Express,” by Mark Twain (listing not in Tenney) in The Empire State Philatelist. A Monthly Magazine for Stamp Collectors, Vol. 2, No. 11 published in NYC by T.C. Watkins & Co. The article is in fact an excerpt from RI, whether authorized or not is unclear.

December 6, 1886 addition – In Hartford, Sam wrote an invitation to Joseph R. Hawley:

Will you dine with me Wednesday afternoon at 4.30 to meet his Excellency Henry M. Stanley, Governor of the Congo Free State? Sincerely Yours S.L. Clemens [Live Auctioneers; MTPO]. Note: See Dec. 8 for dinner at the Clemens home preceding Stanley’s lecture at Unity Hall.

1887 – Sometime during the year in Hartford, Carl Rohl-Smith (b.1848), Danish sculptor, created a bronze, 14” in diameter bas-relief bust of Mark Twain, likely from life. He also did a similar bronze of Sam’s neighbor, Harriet Beecher Stowe

Robert Slotta, May 20, 2010].

Gripsack Gleanings, #s 3 and 4, by the Fun Library, carried Mark

Twain’s story about the Mexican Plug, and “An Introduction” by Twain along with another anecdote [Am. Art Assoc. catalog, Jan. 20, 1914, Items 122 & 123]. See insert cover #3 recently for sale on eBay.

May 14, 1887 addition – Sam wrote an unsent letter to Jeanette Leonard Gilder (two days later he sent only a short note with the first part of this letter.

We shall spend the summer at the same old place—the remote farm called “Rest-&-be-Thankful,” on top of the hills three miles from Elmira, N.Y. Your other question is harder to answer. It is my habit to keep four or five books in process of erection all the time, & every summer add a few courses of brick to