Clemens, Samuel L.

Two autograph letters dating to Clemens's early career in the 1860s.



Autograph letter signed ("Sam L. Clemens Or 'Mark Twain' if you have forgotten genuine name"), 2 pages on one leaf of ruled notepaper, Wailuku, 26 April [1866] to Messrs Kimball, expressing eagerness to visit Haleakala volcano in the company of Messrs Kimball, but needs time to arrive as his horse is pokey; wear at horizontal folds; provenance: Nick Karanovich (sale, Sotheby's 19 June 2003, lot 13); Victor and Irene Murr Jacobs (sale, Sotheby's, 29 October 1996, lot 180) — Autograph letter signed ("Mark Twain"), one page, Hartford, 7 October [1868], to Edward Burlingame, indicating that he was getting out a book and asking whether Burlingame remembered his old Honolulu pun about Twain's name; rust stain on top margin from paper clip.

Eager to promote California's literary talent, a state newspaper sent Clemens to Hawaii in 1866 as a roving reporter. While on his tour he writes to his new friends whom he met aboard the Ajax en route from San Francisco: "Don't you think for a moment of going up on Haleakala without giving me an opportunity of accompanying you! ... give me a day or two ... to get there in, with my horse ... His strong suit is grace & personal comeliness, rather than velocity ..." Clemens also met the diplomat Anson Burlingame and his son Edward in Hawaii. He writes to "Ned" that he is getting a book out—Clemens delivered the manuscript of Innocents Abroad to Bliss in October 1868. He also asks Ned if he recalls his Honolulu joke which was a pun on Matthew 5:41: "If a man compel thee to go with him a mile, go with him, Twain." Clemens was at first delighted with this joke, and for a time used it in his lectures, but its constant repetition in the newspapers ultimately made him loathe it.