11 February 1882 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: TxU-Hu, UCCL 02158)
If I might follow my inclination, I would promptly accept; but I am now canceling such of my social engagements as can be canceled, & am refraining from making new ones, since I am to begin a long journey early in April, & shall need every moment I can get, meantime, to crowd my work forward to a point where I may leave it at a stand-still for a while without detriment. So, to my regret, I must muiss the Gang’s first annual dinner—which, I go bail, “unsight-unseein’,” will be a very long way ahead of any dinner which the original Tom Sawyer’s Gang ever ate or even dreams ed of whilst that bloody-minded organization existed.
Cordially thanking the excellent seven for the compliment which they have paid me, & hoping they may have a good enough time for eight—or even nine, if my nom de plume’s significance may permit me to count for two—I am
E. B. Peck, Esq.
MS, TxU-Hu.
Davis 1957; MicroPUL, reel 2.
In 1957, the letter was owned by Frank C. Willson, who sent a copy to Chester L. Davis, Sr.: “I am enclosing a short Clemens letter of regrets which has come my way. It relates to a Tom Sawyer Club which was formed in Hartford in 1881.” Willson also copied and Davis published a “second sheet of which I have the original,” documenting the first meeting, election of E. Burr, Jr., as “Grand Visionary Tom Sawyer,” and signatures of members Huck Finn, Injun Joe, M. Potter, and “Sid.” Willson noted that the sheet “appears to be actually signed in blood” (Davis 1957).