21 June 1875 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: WvU, UCCL 03801)
Will you come up & play billiards ( th Ⓐemendationbring Mrs. G.,) the e first evening you are in town, & let me know beforehand, so that I can get up a jolly four-handed game?
Unidentified. Clemens wrote this letter on stationery that he used from early 1874 through 1877. On 21 June of 1874, 1876, and 1877, he was in Elmira, whereas he remained in Hartford until 31 July in 1875, which therefore is the likely year of writing.
The manuscript, whose verso is blank, is now tipped into a late edition of The Innocents Abroad (see the textual commentary). The stationery originally may have been a folder, with the postscript on the verso of the second leaf, but subsequently torn away. Clemens canceled the parenthetical reference to “Mrs. G.” and wrote “OVER” in an ink different from the one he used for the rest of the letter.
MS facsimile. The editors have not seen the MS, which is in the West Virginia and Regional History Collection, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown, West Virginia (WvU).
L6 , 46.
The MS, tipped into a copy of the second volume of The Innocents Abroad, volume 2 of the Autograph Edition of the Writings of Mark Twain (American Publishing Company, 1899–1907), was donated by Arthur S. Dayton (1887–1948), a lawyer and major collector of rare books and paintings.