ALS, two pages of graph-like paper, 4.5 x 7, personal letterhead, December 10, [1872]. Letter to Mary Hunter Smith. In full: “Your letter of Nov. 6 has this day reached me, by the way of London. I left there only a day or two after you wrote it, so I met it somewhere in mid-ocean. I am sorry it failed to come to hand while I was on the other side; I would have brought the package with pleasure. However, unless you want it right away I can bring it yet, because I am going back there in May. If you were an Englishman that would be time enough, but Americans are not quite so patient.” In fine condition, with some professional reinforcement to reverse of horizontal folds, and a small notation above date. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope.
Clemens’ biting wit—even when addressing a family member—is clear in this correspondence to Smith, a cousin and former neighbor when the author lived just a block away on Chestnut Street in St. Louis. Her husband, Arden Richard Smith, one those admired ‘patient’ Englishman and an editor on the Missouri Republican newspaper as well a local auctioneer. More than a decade later, the author would create a much more well-known comparison between Americans and the British upon the 1889 publication of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Pre-certified John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and RRAuction COA.
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