ALS signed “Mark,” two pages, 5.5 x 9, August 7, 1886. Letter to longtime friend and fellow author William Dean Howells, in part: "'G. Grist' is George Iles. It is a good squib, but I don't know whether it is suitable or not. You will know. I suppose you pigeon-hole a thing sometimes against the final day of publication—a day most unlikely to arrive in our life-time, I do assure you. Come to think, I am in an odd position for a valuable author. If I should write a book, I couldn't publish it under ten years, if ever. It wouldn't do to go outside of my own shop-people would say I didn't believe in my own shop. I had a hand-shake with Mrs. Howells…If I had met them an hour earlier I would have gone to Boston for a day. So it was lucky: you'd have lost a day." In very good to fine condition, with light staining from, and show-through from, old mounting remnant strips. Accompanied by a custom-made presentation folder and slipcase, as well as a halftone photo of the authors together. This letter seems to refer to the publication of the book Mark Twain's Library of Humor, an anthology of humorous stories by a wide selection of American authors. Although the project had begun in 1880, the book was not published until 1888. In reality, Clemens did very little work besides lending his name to the title, and Howells served as the anonymous editor.
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