Lot Details
Lot 25
Clemens, Samuel L. (Mark Twain)
Autograph manuscript signed ("Mark Twain" scored through), nine pages, 8vo, n.p., n.d., entitled "The Game as Played Up North." With notation at head "Dear Clara [Spaulding Stanchfield]: This is the N[orth] A[merican] Review article which I suppressed. It contains the legal points (or the absence therein). S.L.C." The North American Review had invited twenty-five distinguished authors to contribute a story each to a proposed volume of short stories, the stories to be published anonymously. As part of a contest, readers were to attribute authors to each short story. An indignant Clemens disapproved of the plan: "This scheme was merely a lottery -- that is all it was; no verbal embroideries can get around that prosaic fact. Lotteries are unlawful; this scheme was a breach of the law. This letter used the mails for the dissemination of its advertisements that was another breach of the law." Clemens's name was among those mentioned in the magazine "without my knowledge & without my consent..." The manuscript has been extensively corrected and added to by Clemens.
Provenance: Clara Spaulding Stanchfield, by descent to the present owner.
Property of a Maryland Family
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