The Annual of the Association for Documentary Editing
2017, Volume 38
Mark Twain: April Fool, 1884
Edited by Leslie Myrick and Christopher Ohge
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George Parsons Lathrop to
Samuel L. Clemens
29 March 1884 • New York, N.Y.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCLC 41840)
80 Washington Sq.
New York
Mar 29/84.
Dear Mr. Clemens,
As a faithful reader of as many of your productions as I have been able to get track of or keep up with, I am desirous of securing your autograph, to add to my own, & to the autographs of other distinguished persons.
May I hope that you will confer upon me the favor of writing out neatly upon a large sheet of paper 
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Full size in new windowyour favorite sentiments & beliefs, carefully selected from your various works, with your signature appended?
Should you not have time to do this, an original unpublished composition would be received with gratitude.
Respectfully yours,
G. P. Lathrop.
P.S. Stamps will be sent you, on receipt of MS.
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S. L. Clemens Esq. | Hartford, Conn. [rule]
[postmarked:] new york mar 30 3 30 pm d 84
[docketed by SLC, in pencil:] G. P. Lathrop | Joke from | Lathrop [rule]
Textual Commentary
▮ Copy-text: MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
Persons Mentioned
George Parsons Lathrop (1851–1898)
George Parsons Lathrop was an editor, poet, critic, and copyright reformer. He served as associate editor of the Atlantic Monthly (1875–77), editor-in-chief of the Boston Courier (1877–79), and literary editor of the New York Star in the late 1880s. He became secretary of the American Copyright League in 1883. Lathrop married Rose Hawthorne, the daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne, in 1871. From 1879 to 1883 the couple lived in Concord, Mass., in the Hawthorne homestead, the Wayside. Lathrop wrote A Study of Hawthorne (1876) and was an editor of the Riverside Edition of The Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (1882–84). Lathrop was a founding member of the Authors Club and a member of the Players Club and the Papyrus Club in Boston.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Sponsored by the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.ISSN 2167-1257
