24 March 1875 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 01214)
Called twice to suggest that Wm. H. Wright (“Dan de Quille”) e city editor of the Virginia City (Nevada) “Enterprise” is a good man to write a stirring & truthful book about the “big bonanza,” because he has been city editor on that p Ⓐemendation paper more than 14 years, & knows it all—& everybody.1explanatory note
If you like the idea, drop him a line. I came near writing him myself the other day, but waited nt to see how the notion might strike you. The book ought really to be The Story of the Comstock Lode, with all the strange & romantic fortunes & incidents connected with it, & make the Bonanza the grand climax. It is a marvelous subject.2explanatory note The first big compliment I ever received was that I was “almost worthy to write in the same column with Dan de Quille.”
Since Anna Dickinson don’t sign the contract, I think you are the lucky party—not she.3explanatory note
letter docketed: ✓ and Sam’l Clemens | Mch. 24 ″75
Wright was the senior reporter and local editor for the Virginia City, Nevada, Territorial Enterprise when Clemens joined the staff in 1862. Clemens filled Wright’s place during his absence on a trip home to Iowa, and afterward the two men worked together, becoming close friends and, for a time, roommates. After Clemens left for San Francisco in 1864 they fell out of touch, and they had exchanged no correspondence—except for Clemens’s wedding announcement—in the intervening years. Wright was still employed on the Enterprise, working long hours for a meager wage and writing fiction and humor on the side to supplement his income ( L1 , 277 n. 4; L4 , 62; Lewis, xii, xiv; Berkove 1988, 2).
From 1861 through 1874 the mines of the Comstock lode, located on the east side of Mount Davidson near (and under) Virginia City, produced more than $150 million in gold and silver bullion. In October 1874, a rich vein of silver—considered the “true heart” of the lode—was discovered, and soon came to be known as the “great bonanza” because of its immense value, estimated as high as $1.5 billion. This discovery and the attention it was drawing to Nevada persuaded Clemens of the appeal of the book he proposed here (Wright 1876, 365–66; Annual Cyclopaedia 1874 , 593).
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L6 , 424–425; Lewis, xvi, with omission.
see Mendoza Collection in Description of Provenance.