[Letter] Monday, Gramercy Park [to] Mr. Rideing / S[amuel] L Clemens.

The letter is written on The Players, 16 Gramercy Park letterhead with a seal of theater masks on the recto. See also additional letters in the collection from Twain.

Clemens tells Rideing that they are still hunting for the Shelley manuscript; if he does not find it, he promises to send to Florence for the original manuscript, and then re-edit it and send it to Rideing for inspection. Meanwhile, he recommends using the Jumping Frog (published originally in the _Saturday Press_ in 1865) in the _North American_ and "knocking out" the French version to save space. He promises to "think out the writing" for "How to Tell a Story" (published as _How to Tell a Story, and Other Essays_ , 1897) in the steamer on his way to Europe, and then the writing will be "simple." Novelist, essayist, lecturer, prospector, river pilot, and journalist, Samuel Langhorne Clemens used the pseudonym "Mark Twain," a river pilot's catchphrase for measuring depth. His boyhood and early apprenticeship as a river boat pilot on the Mississippi provided much of the background for his most well-known works _The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_ (1876) and _ The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ (1884).