Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 3: 1869 [Hardcover]

Mark Twain (Author), Victor Fischer (Editor), Michael B. Frank (Editor), Dahlia Armon (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Mark Twain's Letters | Publication Date: July 28, 1992

"Don't scold me, Livy--let me pay my due homage to your worth; let me honor you above all women; let me love you with a love that knows no doubt, no question--for you are my world, my life, my pride, my all of earth that is worth the having." These are the words of Samuel Clemens in love. Playful and reverential, jubilant and despondent, they are filled with tributes to his fiancée Olivia Langdon and with promises faithfully kept during a thirty-four-year marriage.
The 188 superbly edited letters gathered here show Samuel Clemens having few idle moments in 1869. When he was not relentlessly "banged about from town to town" on the lecture circuit or busily revising The Innocents Abroad, the book that would make his reputation, he was writing impassioned letters to Olivia. These letters, the longest he ever wrote, make up the bulk of his correspondence for the year and are filled with his acute wit and dazzling language. This latest volume of Mark Twain's Letters captures Clemens on the verge of becoming the celebrity and family man he craved to be.
This volume has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and by a major donation to the Friends of The Bancroft Library from the Pareto Fund.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

As scrupulously edited as the first two volumes of this definitive edition, the 188 letters of the crucial year 1869 depict Twain getting The Innocents Abroad published; buying into, and becoming editor of, The Buffalo Express; and wooing his fiancee Olivia Langdon with happy daily assertions of her spiritual superiority. These spritely letters show Twain trying to gain a firm foothold on Eastern respectability, partly by submitting to Livie's moral injunctions, and to build a respectable bankroll by cashing in on his grueling lecture circuit. A delightful, invaluable, energy-charged addition to Twain scholarship.
-Charles C. Nash, Cottey Coll., Nevada, Mo.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Distinguished by meticulous editorial standards and exacting scholarship. The letters of few other authors have been handled with such exhaustive and intelligent care." -- Choice

"No writer has come closer to embodying, in his own history, the contemporary history of his nation. . . . It is from the letters in this copious and munificent edition . . . that one gets the full sprawl and multitudinousness of the man and his extraordinary knack of speaking for America." -- Times Literary Supplement

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 745 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (July 28, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520036700
• ISBN-13: 978-0520036703
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,877,770 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Been Here Before I Lighted Out For The Territories, August 13, 2000

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desefinado "desefinado" (Centennial, CO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 3: 1869 (Hardcover)

This volume of effervescence gives off more sparks than a campfire from "Roughing It". It also provides terrific context for a group of essays by Shelly Fisher Fishkin "Lighting Out for the Territories". For real fun read David Carkeet's modern recreation of Twain "I Been Here Before", a book Twain would have somehow wished to be included in his canon. Don't be surprised if someday Carkeet's book is included as a companion volume to the Oxford Mark Twain.