Description:

Clemens Samuel

Mark Twain ALS: he is busy writing A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and can't attend event in Massachusetts



ALS by American humorist Mark Twain mounted in handsome mahogany finished oblong frame measuring 23" x 14.125". The 4.5" x 7" letter, written in the third person, inscribed overall, and signed by Twain as "Mr. S.L. Clemens" at top, appears to the right of a black and white photograph of the author framed behind a beveled two-toned mat and plexiglass. The ALS is in near fine condition, with expected light horizontal folds. The frame is also in near fine condition, with isolated checking, not examined out of frame. Comes with a Letter of Authenticity from Gotta Have It! Collectibles.

 



Mark Twain declined an invitation from the Berkshire Press Club on October 17, 1887, likely writing from his sanctuary, the third-floor billiard room of his brick-front Victorian mansion in Hartford, Connecticut.

 



"Mr. S.L. Clemens thanks the Berkshire Press Club for their kind invitation, + greatly regrets that his occupations + engagements are such as to debar its acceptance.

 



Hartford, Oct. 17, 1887".

 



Mark Twain was indeed very busy at this time. In a letter to publisher Charles L. Webster written just two months earlier, Twain mentioned no fewer than six concurrent writing and publishing projects. These included his third novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, his biography of Leo XIII, his Library of Humor (an anthology of short humorous stories compiled by Twain) and the memoirs of U.S. Grant, George McClellan, and Henry Ward Beecher. Later that summer and fall, Twain determined his publishing company's selection of and timeline for future publications, rejecting the idea of a book about a Tiffany's gemologist, but fast tracking the memoir of a Delmonico's chef.

 



In addition to present and future business concerns, Twain was trying to pay off existing debts from a decade of unsuccessful business ventures and poor investments. This took up a great deal of energy and worried him excessively. On August 3, 1887, Twain wrote: "I work seven hours a day [on A Connecticut Yankee], and am in such a taut-strung and excitable condition that everything that can worry me does it; and I get up and spend from 1 o'clock till 3 AM pretty regularly every night, thinking, not pleasantly."

 



Twain's schedule thus prevented him from traveling to Western Massachusetts during the autumn of 1887. The Berkshire Press Club, headquartered at Pittsfield, Massachusetts and led by President S. Chester Lyon, was comprised of local journalists and writers. The group invited leading literary figures of the day like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Mark Twain to attend their events throughout the 1880s.

 



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