TWO SIGNED ITEMS FROM MARK TWAIN, INCLUDING AN HISTORIC QUOTE FROM PUDD’NHEAD WILSON
Two wonderful autograph notes signed, framed together with a portrait. The first, addressed to Edward William Bok, is written on Twain’s monogrammed notecard, 5 1/4 x 3 inches (7.5 x 13 cm) and is dated Hartford, November 20, 1880. It reads: “Dear Sir, You must pardon me, but I was so busy with the election, & I forgot all about this & a lot of other things. Truly Yours, S.L. Clemens, Mark Twain.” The second is a signed autograph quotation written on card stock, 3 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches (8.75 x 11.25 cm), and is dated October 5, 1897. It reads “‘The proverb says, let a sleeping dog lie.’ This is well – usually; but if it is a matter of large importance it is better to get a newspaper to do it for you. Truly yours, Mark Twain.” The cards with minor soiling and toning, the right corner of the second creased, attractively matted and framed.
The twice-signed note is to the young Edward William Bok (who would later become the noted editor of the Ladies Home Journal and the author of The Americanization of Edward Bok). He had just started an autograph collection with a letter from Garfield. The second notecard is an extremely rare quotation from Twain’s 1897 work, Following the Equator, where it appears with a slight variation as an epigraph to Chapter VIII: “The old saw says, Let a sleeping dog lie. Right. Still, when there is much at stake it is better to get a newspaper to do it. – Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar.”
