TWAIN MARK: (1835-1910) Twain reacts to having a piece rejected - ´ ´Look here, Alden, you didn´ t read it´´

TWAIN MARK: (1835-1910) Twain reacts to having a piece rejected - ´ ´Look here, Alden, you didn´ t read it´´

TWAIN MARK: (1835-1910) Samuel Langhorne Clemens. American writer and humourist. An excellent A.L.S., S L Clemens, two pages, 8vo, Florence, 24th November (1892), to [Henry Mills] Alden. Twain commences his letter proclaiming ´I know I never, never shall get over the astonishment of it!´ and continues to gently chastise Alden, in Twain´s quintessential style, writing ´I sent you the most delicious thing that has been offered to any magazine in 30 years in the way [of] innocent, unconscious & absolutely killing humor - offered it to you on your own terms, too - & you declined it because I didn´t write it. Why, dang it, the reason for declining it is really worse than the crime itself; for gold is gold, & varying the mint-mark can´t alter its value - & if that wasn´t gold, standard gold, sterling gold, golden humor, then I don´t know that metal when I see it, I who claim to be an expert´, further adding ´And you think you would have taken that mere paper-issue, a million pound note, in preference. Paste, and diamonds! - that´s what the two are. I wasn´t sending a gem to Gilder - he hadn´t asked for one, he merely wanted a screed of some kind - but I knew I was shipping Kimberley to you´ and concluding ´Look here, Alden, you didn´t read it. You saw it was mainly reprint, & jumped to an over-hasty conclusion. But if you had read it - & read it aloud to people, as I have done - then you´d have seen effects such as you have never seen in your life up to now. Ah, if I had only been there! I´d have read it to you, & opened your eyes!´. A letter of fabulous and entertaining content. Annotated in ink in another hand to the head of the first page. Some very light, minor age wear, with a slight scuff affecting one word of text and a very small, neat split to the centre of the lower edge, otherwise VG

Henry Mills Alden (1836-1919) American author, the editor of Harper´s Magazine from 1869-1919.