Auction Date:2012 May 16 @ 18:00 (UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
ALS signed “Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain,” one page, lightly-lined, 4.5 x 7, February 14 [1871]. Letter to an unidentified gentleman. In full: “I am only too proud of the chance to help with this the only Valentine I venture to write this day—for although I am twain in my own person I am only half a person in my matrimonial firm, & sometimes my wife shows that she is so much better & nobler than I am that I seriously question I am really any more than about a quarter!” In very good condition, with scattered light staining to letter, not affecting legibility, and mounting remnants to reverse.
Valentine’s Day “always brings me an armful of dainty notes from young women whom I have stricken with my destructive eye,” Clemens once boasted. “Eyes, would have been more proper. I generally bring down a couple at a time. Strabismus enables me to do that.” But he was in not in such good humor in February 1871. His wife Olivia was stricken with typhoid fever that month, and he had to cut short a trip to Washington, D.C. to be by her bedside. Her illness worried Clemens to what he termed a “state of absolute frenzy,” and without Olivia at the helm, the family’s household slipped into chaos. Without his mother, Langdon, their sickly young son, cried incessantly: “I believe if that baby goes on crying 3 more hours this way I will butt my frantic brains out & try to get some peace,” Clemens lamented. Olivia began to recover by mid-month, and this witty Valentine note reveals his dependence and love for his wife, which he must have felt especially strongly during this difficult period.
Auction Location:
5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
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