Thomas W. Knox (1835–96)—a traveler, journalist, and author—was born in New Hampshire. He first worked as a teacher, but in 1860, after gold was discovered in Colorado, he went to Denver, where he worked on the News. He served as a volunteer aide during the Civil War, and also corresponded for the New York Herald. In 1866 he traveled five thousand miles by sledge and wagon across Siberia, in the employ of the Herald, with an American company that was establishing a telegraph line on behalf of the Russian government. His Herald letters formed the basis of his book Overland through Asia (1870), published by the American Publishing Company. In later years he produced nearly forty travel books for boys, as well as several biographies.

Knox’s letter is not known to survive.

Unidentified.

Knox, a director of the Lotos Club had evidently asked Clemens to write something for an anthology entitled Lotos Leaves, currently being prepared by club members John Brougham and John Elderkin. In spite of Clemens’s refusal here, he ultimately contributed “An Encounter with an Interviewer” to the volume, which issued in November 1874 and included articles by Knox and Andrews as well (see the previous letter; Elderkin, 23; Brougham and Elderkin, 27–32, 103–9, 263–75).