21 January 1881 • Hartford, Conn. (Sales catalogs: correspondence card, Parke-Bernet Galleries, 10 and 11 December 1941, no. 325, lot 114; Christie’s catalog, 5 December 1997, lot 142, UCCL 01894)
I enclose note of the inventory, which you may return to me. Maybe you can understand them—they mean little to me.Ⓐemendation I have stricken out the Whipping-boy’s storyⒶemendation, & added over 130 new pages of MS to the prince’s adventures in the rural districts. The number of pages, before, was 734—the number is 870, now—fully as bulky a book as Tom SawyerⒶemendation, I think. The book is finished, but I expect to add some more pages when I make a final revision—doubtless next week.
All variants between the source texts are reported here. The readings identified by the siglum ‘MTP’ are editorial emendations of the source readings made because none is deemed correct by itself.
The text is based on two printed sources, both sales catalogs, each of which derives independently from the MS. Both catalogs indicate that the letter was laid in a copy of SLC 1881.
The MS was offered for sale in 1933 by Ritter-Hopson Galleries, and in 1941 from the collection of H. Bertram Smith.