Clemens, Samuel L.:

$6,500 · Offered by William Reese Company

[AUTOGRAPH LETTER, SIGNED "MARK," TO WILLARD CHURCH, EDITOR OF "The Galaxy" ABOUT THE INFAMOUS HOAX REVIEW OF Innocence Abroad]. To Willard C. Church, in his capacity as editor/publisher of The Galaxy magazine. A well-known letter, quoted in large part in Mott's chapter on The Galaxy in A History of American Magazines (1938), concerning the challenge and wager stemming from a writer in the Cincinnati Enquirer having been deceived by Clemens' own parody—published in the Dec. issue of The Galaxy—of a London Saturday Review notice of Innocence Abroad. Clemens writes, in part, about placement of an update in the next issue: "Oh, please don't fail to put this delicious thing in - now don't....I've got these 'Enquirer' idiots just where I wanted somebody -- don't you see why? Because half the people don't know now whether to believe I wrote that thing or not or whether it was from the Review, or whether it is all a sell, & no criticism ever was in the London paper. Now over the shoulders of this Cincinnati fool I'll make the whole thing straight. Don't you let that paragraph get lost for your life." Signed: "Yrs Ever, Mark.""Late in 1870, [Clemens] used the columns of both the Buffalo Express and the Galaxy to publish a piece designed to avertise as well as to entertain. Acting, Clemens wrote, at the suggestion of the Boston Advertiser, he printed what purported to be a review of The Innocents Abroad taken from the Saturday Review of London. Actually, the review was a hoax, written

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.