HARTFORD, Conn. — A letter written by author Mark Twain to his best friend shortly after the death of Twain’s wife has been given to the Mark Twain House and Museum.
Museum officials say they recently received the letter, written 13 days after the death of Olivia Clemens, from the descendants of Rev. Joseph Hopkins Twichell.
Rev. Twichell met Twain, whose real name was Samuel Clemens, in Hartford in 1868. The two men carried on an intimate friendship which lasted until Twain’s death in 1910.
In the June 1904 letter, Twain writes of his wife’s passing, “I was richer than any other person in the world, and now I am that pauper without peer.”
Joseph Twichell, of Stonington, and David Twichell Jr., of West Falmouth, Massachusetts, delivered the letter to the museum Thursday.
