Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) Papers

1889
Manuscript Collection #446
Creator(s)
Clemens, Samuel Langhorne, 1835-1910
Physical description
0.22 Cubic Feet, One framed letter and copy.
Preferred Citation
Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) Papers (#446), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.
Repository
ECU Manuscript Collection
Access
No restrictions

Papers (1889) including framed letter and copy.


Biographical/historical information

Samuel Clemens was born in Missouri on November 30, 1835 and died in Connecticut on April 21, 1910 at the age of 74. Samuel Clemens was a humorist, novelist, and a travel writer that wrote under the pen name Mark Twain. He began his writing career at the Missouri Courier until his brother bought the Hannibal Journal where Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain" became a typist. He is most known for his books The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.


Scope and arrangement

On April 10, 1889, Samuel Langhorne Clemens wrote this one-page letter in response to an invitation to speak at the University of Missouri. Walter Williams, founder of the university's journalism school, had attempted to arrange an appearance by Clemens and Henry Watterson, editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal. Clemens, who was living in Hartford, Connecticut, and engaged in several pursuits, declined. Using characteristic humor and knowledge gained during a recent visit to Thomas A. Edison's laboratory in New Jersey, Clemens quipped: "While Watterson, by himself, is a useless carbon loop, & I, by myself, am a useless wire, we are an electric light when we combine."


Administrative information
Custodial History

July 23, 1983, 1 item; Letter (April 10, 1889). Loaned by Ronald W. Hoag, Greenville, N.C., and George W. and Ruth N. Hoag, Needham, Mass.

Source of acquisition

Loaned by Ronald W. Hoag

Loaned by George W. and Ruth N. Hoag

Processing information

Processed by S. Morgan, May 1983

Encoded by Apex Data Services

Description updated by Ashlyn Racine, July 2023

Copyright notice

Literary rights to specific documents are retained by the authors or their descendants in accordance with U.S. copyright law.


Key terms
Personal Names
Twain, Mark, 1835-1910--Correspondence
Williams, Walter, 1864-1935--Correspondence
Topical
Authors, American--19th century--Correspondence

Container list
Box 1 Folder a Framed picture of a letter from Samuel L. Clemens to Walter Williams. Photocopy.