Clemens, Samuel L.

Autograph letter signed ("Mark Twain"), 2 pages on coated notepaper (4 1/4 x 5 5/8 in.; 106 x 145 mm), New York, 16 October 1902, to a young admirer, Gertrude Swain of Greeley, Nebraska, thanking her for her positive critique of Huckleberry Finn; browned, margins chipped. Together with: holograph envelope; soiled.  

Victor and Irene Murr Jacobs (sale, Sotheby's 29 October 1996, lot 297)

Responding to an admirer of Huckleberry Finn and castigating the clergy. Clemens writes to a young girl from Greely, Nebraska, who has read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn no less than fifty times. Focusing on the moral quality of the book, Clemens explains: "I would rather have your judment of the moral quality of the Huck Finn Book, after your fifty re-readings of it, than that of fifty clergmen after reading it once apiece." Impious as ever, Clemens inveighs against the clergy which he accuses of narrow-mindedness: "I should have confidence in your moral vision, but not so much in theirs, because it is limited in the matter of distance, & is pretty often out of focus."