[Original Autograph Letter, Signed ("S. L. Clemens") to James R. Osgood] de Clemens, Samuel L - 1883

Hartford, 1883. 1 2/3 pages, in pencil, on two octavo lettersheets. Folded for mailing, filing pinhole through upper left corner, else very good or better. To James R. Osgood, then principal of Osgood & Company, and publisher of THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER, and other titles by Clemens and his contemporaries, on the occasion of George W. Cable's appearances in Hartford: "Cable read Parson Jones before the Young Girls' Club & scored a rattling victory. They have made it the talk of Hartford. The Warners are gathering a crowd for tonight & when Cable is through with them his stock will be away up, & the memory of his defeat will be sponged out & forgotten. He knows how to read - there ain't no question about it ...." Cable arrived in Hartford on 2 April, and stayed with C. Dudley Warner; during the course of his six days in Hartford, he spoke or read at several public or private venues, including a reading at Unity Hall on the 4th, where Clemens introduced him, but the reading went poorly. As indicated in Clemens' letter, he vindicated himself with a reading on the 5th. Clemens concludes his letter with a troubling paragraph about Livy Clemens' deteriorating health, closing: "I am uneasy & bothered. Yrs truly SL Clemens."