Five Additional Recovered Letters by Mark Twain

1. “Mark Twain a Cub Printer,” New York Sun, 19 January 1886, 3. Clemens was invited in December 1885 or early January 1886 by Douglas Taylor,¹ senior partner in the New York printing firm of Taylor & Company, to speak at the Typothetae Dinner held at Delmonico’s on the evening of 18 January 1886. Clemens replied:

Dear Mr. Taylor:

You move me powerfully. Is it regular toasts or just volunteer speeches? And in either case, do you think that if I had to be called on I could be called on early in the fight? I could not sit long with an impending talk in my bowels without acute suffering. I should like to come first rate, although I swore off five years ago.

His after-dinner speech was subsequently published.²

2. “Personal and General Notes,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, 20 February 1886, 4. On 5 February 1886 Clemens declined an invitation to lecture in Atlanta:

If I were in the field, nothing could please me better than a visit and a talk in Atlanta; but I shall never stand on a platform again, I suppose, until I do it by the soft compulsion of the sheriff.

3. “New England News,” Worcester Spy, 5 June 1886, 3. Nearly a decade after he delivered an after-dinner speech before the Putnam Phalanx of Hartford,³ Sam Clemens was elected a life member of the group. In acknowledging the honor he wrote:

Your organization is now complete. The rest of the phalanx can always be depended upon in time of war, and I shall never fail you in time of peace.

4. “Personal and Pertinent,” New York Evening World, 29 January 1889, 4. Clemens contracted on 3 January 1889 with Abby Sage Richardson to dramatize The Prince and the Pauper. Less than a month later, Clemens reported to a friend “in this city” that

A dramatization of a book of mine will intrude upon the stage in the Spring or next Fall, and that will afford me all the discomfort I shall need for several years. I have had to do with plays before, and I’ve got my sackcloth and ashes ready. I know what to expect.

This news about the theatrical adaptation of Clemens’ novel soon prompted Edward House, who had earlier reached an oral agreement to dramatize the tale, to file suit against the author and his producer, Daniel Frohman.

5. “The Horace Greeley Statue Fund,” New York Tribune, 14 October 1889, 7. Seventeen years after the death of Horace Greeley, the former owner and editor of the New York Tribune, Clemens declined a request that he preside at a benefit dinner in his honor but enclosed a check for twenty dollars.

I have reformed and sworn off [chairing], and so the only thing I can do is to join the ranks of the inconspicuous and contribute my trifle of money to help honor the memory of that great and true American and leave the introducing of those choice boys to some other lover of theirs.