23 December 1884 • 1st of 2 (MS, in pencil: NPV, UCCL 03068)
573 ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERR
Finn. (Tom Sawyer’s comrade.) Mark Twain’s new
ume. Just ready. With 174 original
illustrations. Sq
8vo. Cloth. (366 pp.) 1884. Reduced from $2.75 to $2
☞ A mine of humor. The brightest and most humorous book t
Mark Twain has ever written.
The above, being published by subscription, are usually sold only b
agents, and at full retail prices.
The fact that over 300,000 volumes of his books have been sold in this
country alone, and the instantaneous success which awaits each new pro
duction of his pen, are the best proofs that could be adduced that the keen
wit of the prince of American humorists is appreciated and thoroughly en-
joyed by his fellow countrymen.
Charley, if this is a lie, let Alexander & Green sue them for damages instantly. And if we have no chance at them in law, tell me at once & I will publishe them as thieves & swindlers.
Hadn’t you better send a 6 witnesses or so to to try to buy 3 copies each? Use their testimony.
in ink:I think you better print the enclosed in fac simile of my handwriting, & put a copy in every canvassers hands.
“Huckleberry Finn.”
My new book is not out of the press; no man has a copy of it; yet Estes & Lauriat, of Boston and New York announce it as “now ready,” & for sale by them—& at a reduced price. These vermin people deliberately lied when they made that statement. Since it was a lie which could in no possible way advantage them, it was necessarily a purely malicious lie, whose only purpose was to injure me, who have in no way harmed them.
They will have an immediate opportunity to explain, in court, & pay for the opportunity of explaining.
Hartford, Dec. 23, 1884.
MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Special Collections, NPV.
MTBus, 284–85.
see McKinney Family Papers in Description of Provenanceclick to open letter.