Mark Twain: April Fool, 1884
Edited by Leslie Myrick and Christopher Ohge
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Horatio C. King to
Samuel L. Clemens
31 March 1884 • New York, N.Y.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCLC 41960)
Office of Horatio C. King,
Counsellor at Law,
No. 115 Broadway,
New York, March 31 1884.
S. L. Clemens Esq
My dear Sir:
I know your time is much engrossed, but I beg you to stop long enough to send me your autograph for a young friend who greatly admires your writings.[1]
Yours Truly,
Horatio C. King
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S. L. Clemens Esq | Hartford | Conn. [rule]
[return address:] Horatio C. King, | counsellor at law, | no. 115 broadway, | New York [postmarked:] new york apr ♢ 5 30 pm 84
Explanatory Notes
Textual Commentary
▮ Copy-text: MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
Persons Mentioned
Horatio C. King (1837–1918)
Horatio Collins King was a decorated Civil War officer, lawyer, publisher of the Christian Union and the Christian at Work in the 1870s, and longtime member of Beecher's Plymouth Church, which had been founded by his father-in-law, Joseph Tasker Howard. In 1878 he left publishing and was appointed major of the Thirteenth Regiment of the New York National Guard, of which he was later made judge advocate general. He was active in Democratic politics, but was never successful in winning an office.