Explanatory Notes        Apparatus Notes ()

Source: Collection of Todd M. Axelrod, Gallery of History ([Axelrod])

Cue: "To write an"

Source format: "MS facsimile"

Letter type: "[standard letter]"

Notes:

Last modified: 2009-01-27T14:02:34

Revision History: AB | ldm 2009-01-27 was CU-MARK

MTPDocEd
To Fannie Dennis
17 February 1871 • Buffalo, N.Y. (MS: Axelrod, UCCL 00578)
c
Miss Fannie Dennis:
           Brooklyn:

To write an autograph is no trouble at all, when a body is used to it, but I never have tried to add a “sentiment” in my life, & so I assure you it comes awkward enough.1explanatory note Therefore, let us judge just dodge the difficulty entirely & make use of somebody else’s sentiment. Now I always admired that neat & snappy thing which good old John Bunyan said to the Duke of Wellington: “Give me liberty, or give me death!” It Isn’t emendationit pretty?

Very Truly emendationYrs
Saml. L. Clemens
                                               Mark Twain.emendation
Textual Commentary
17 February 1871 • To Fannie DennisBuffalo, N.Y.UCCL 00578
Source text(s):

MS, collection of Todd M. Axelrod.

Previous Publication:

L4 , 334.

Provenance:

The current location of the MS, owned in 1980 by James Pepper and in 1983 by Axelrod, is not known.

Explanatory Notes
1 

Dennis’s autograph request is not known to survive. She has not been further identified.

Emendations and Textual Notes
  It Isn’t •  Itsn’t
  Truly •  possibly Y Truly’; ‘Y partly formed
 Saml. . . . Twain. • a vertical brace spans the right margin of the two-line signature
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