Autographed Card Signed ("S. L. Clemens")

[Circa 1882].

Price: $4,250.00

Unbound. A small card, approximately 3" x 5", with the author's engraved monogram in red. Paper clip shadow on the left side, as well as a modest paper remnant on the verso where the card was tipped into a scrapbook, just touching the last letter in his signature, else very good. To the author's publisher, using both sides of the card. In full: "Wednesday. My Dear Osgood – All right – shall expect you Friday [word scratched out]. Would have written you sooner, but one of the children has been lying very close to the grave ever since New Years' night, & was not declared out of danger till yesterday evening. Truly Yours, S.L. Clemens." Undated but circa 1882. A little better content than most of Clemens's notes, the tragic theme of his children's mortality played an important role in his life.

Item #88777

item image

Item #88777 Autographed Card Signed ("S. L. Clemens"). Mark TWAIN, Samuel Clemens.
Autographed Card Signed ("S. L. Clemens")

Mark Twain
birth name: Samuel Langhorne Clemens
born: 11/30/1835
died: 4/21/1910
nationality: USA

View Reference Info

Biography

American humorist, writer, and lecturer who won a worldwide audience for his stories of youthful adventures, especially Tom Sawyer (1876), Life on the Mississippi (1883) and Huckleberry Finn (1884). - Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literaturemore

Collecting tips:

Twain was prolific, and his publishing history is complicated, so don't try Twain unless you have good advice or some good reference material. His first book, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County and Other Sketches (1867 - in various color clothes, with the frog usually in the left-hand corner, but occasionally he's hopped off elsewhere), is expensive, as are those two classics of American Literature, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876, the London edition precedes, but both that and the U.S. edition are rapidly pursued) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (London, 1884 - again the U.K. edition precedes, 1885 in the U.S., with innumerable bindings, states, and issues). Collecting Twain can be a life's work, so you're only getting the broad strokes from us.

Email us to request a printed copy of our catalog of Mark Twain Rare Books and First Editions (or download it via the link as a 4.27 MB pdf file).

We also offer a comprehensive Mark Twain Bibliography and Price Guide.more