Skip to main content

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

Lot 251

CLEMENS (SAMUEL L.) 'Mark Twain'
Autograph letter signed ("From your well-wishing friend Mark Twain"), to "Jack", promising to celebrate his birthday that evening and enclosing his poem 'Invocation', At Sea, August 28 1895

24 June 2015, 11:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £4,750 inc. premium

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our Books & Manuscripts specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

Ask about this lot

CLEMENS (SAMUEL L.) 'Mark Twain'

Autograph letter signed ("From your well-wishing friend Mark Twain"), to "Jack", promising to celebrate his birthday that evening, making "all the noise the captain will allow", describing him as a naturalist and explaining that the enclosed poem ('Invocation') is for those interested in the fauna of Australia, as he is, and therefore sending "privately & confidentially" a copy of his "great work" as it stands, mentioning that he has not yet worked in the moa, emu or dodo ("but I am after them"), 3 pages, 8vo, At Sea, 28 August 1895

Footnotes

'COME, KANGAROO, THE GOOD & TRUE/FORESHORTENED AS TO LEGS/AND BODY TAPERED LIKE A CHURN': The poem was first published in The Mercury in Australia on 2 November 1895. Clemens himself printed it in Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World, 1897, and explained that an English naturalist [presumably the addressee 'Jack'] on board had told him much about the animals of Australia and their origins, particularly the platypus and kangaroo. The Mercury reported that at a lecture Clemens had stated: 'I have a poem. I have written a poem only once in 30 years. I have now written one of four stanzas...I always have an inspiration to write a poem -- once every 30 years...First I thought of Sydney Harbour...Then I thought of the fauna of Australia...I made a list of them and began...I can say now that the most difficult thing in the world to do is to write poetry when you don't know how...'

Additional information

Bid now on these items

A Presentation Copy of Kennedy's First Book to Spencer Tracy. Kennedy, John F. 1917-1963. Why England Slept. New York: Wilfred Funk, Inc., 1940.

Signed to Spencer Tracy 1952 Hemingway, Ernest. 1899-1961. The Old Man and the Sea, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952.

CORNELIUS, MATTHEWS, editor. 1817-1889. The Enchanted Moccasins and Other Legends of the American Indians.

CALEPINO, AMBROGIO. 1435-1511. [Dictionarium.] Calepinus Ad librum. Mos est putidas.... Venice: Peter Liechtenstein, January 3, 1509.

HEARN, LAFCADIO. 1850-1904. [Japanese Fairy Tales.] Philadelphia: Macrae-Smith, [But Tokyo: T. Hasegawa,] [c.1931].

HEMINGWAY, ERNEST. 1899-1961. PUTNAM, SAMUEL, translator. Kiki's Memoirs. Paris: Sign of the Black Manikin, 1930.