26 October 1875 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: Karanovich, UCCL 11672)
I ask a thousand pardons, but I spent a week in New York, & business drove the matter clear out of my otherwise empty head, where it was reposing solitary companionless in the midst of a vast & howling solitude.
Hoping you will generously forgive this unforgivable lapse, I sign myself,
Dear Madam,
Mark Twain
Jane Tunis Poultney Bigelow was the wife of John Bigelow (1817–1911), a prominent journalist, author, and diplomat. They had been married since 1850 and had eight children. She evidently wrote a note requesting an autograph, and perhaps followed it with a reminder; neither letter is known to survive. Clemens’s “week in New York” was from 12 to 16 October (see pp. 556–57).
MS facsimile. The editors have not seen the MS, which was owned in 1990 by Nick Karanovich, who provided a photocopy to the Mark Twain Papers.
L6 , 574–575.