Superb vintage matte-finish 3.5 x 5.25 postcard photo of Samuel L. Clemens in a full-length pose standing outdoors and clad in his trademark white suit, signed in the lower border in black ink with his famous pen name, "Mark Twain." In fine condition. Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from University Archives. Encapsulated and graded by PSA/DNA as "GEM MT 10."
In Mark Twain’s Autobiography, published in 1906, he announced his intention to wear white suits year-round. He was more comfortable in white than in dark colors but had always conformed to seasonal fashion. He wrote: ‘One of my sorrows, when the summer ends, is that I must put off my cheery and comfortable white clothes and enter for the winter into the depressing captivity of the shapeless and degrading black ones.’ Although Clemens’s prolific writing career was long behind him when he began wearing his white suits, it is this image of the author that remains ingrained in the public imagination—this photograph, in particular, showing him with cane and hat against a wooded backdrop, is a wonderfully appropriate example.
