THE JAMES S. COPLEY LIBRARY: ARTS & SCIENCES, INCLUDING THE MARK TWAIN COLLECTION
7 000 — 10 000
Lot. Vendu	18,750 USD (Prix d'adjudication avec commission acheteur)
17 juin 2010 | 10:00 AM EDT
Selby Kiffer
International Senior Books Specialist
selby.kiffer@sothebys.com
Justin Caldwell
justin.caldwell@sothebys.com
Autograph letter signed ("Mark Twain"), 2 pages on coated notepaper (4 1/4 x 5 5/8 in.; 106 x 145 mm), New York, 16 October 1902, to a young admirer, Gertrude Swain of Greeley, Nebraska, thanking her for her positive critique of Huckleberry Finn; browned, margins chipped. Together with: holograph envelope; soiled.
Victor and Irene Murr Jacobs (sale, Sotheby's 29 October 1996, lot 297)
Responding to an admirer of Huckleberry Finn and castigating the clergy. Clemens writes to a young girl from Greely, Nebraska, who has read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn no less than fifty times. Focusing on the moral quality of the book, Clemens explains: "I would rather have your judment of the moral quality of the Huck Finn Book, after your fifty re-readings of it, than that of fifty clergmen after reading it once apiece." Impious as ever, Clemens inveighs against the clergy which he accuses of narrow-mindedness: "I should have confidence in your moral vision, but not so much in theirs, because it is limited in the matter of distance, & is pretty often out of focus."
Estimation 7 000 — 10 000