$242K for Twain’s manuscript

Jun 20, 2010 |

London

An unpublished, handwritten manuscript written for his daughter by noted American author Mark Twain has fetched a whopping $242,500, double the original estimate at an auction.

The 64-page note titled A Family Sketch was indited by Twain around 1896 or 1897 for Olivia “Susy” Clemens, who inspired some of Twain’s stories, contactmusic reported.
Twain while describing Susy’s personality wrote, “She was a magazine of feelings, (of) all shades of force... In all things she was intense: in her this characteristic was not a mere glow, dispensing warmth, but a consuming fire.”
Some people believe that the document also reminisced about Twain’s own childhood and was the missing chapter of his autobiography. The document was among a trove of 200 Twain letters, manuscripts and photographs which went under the hammer at Sotherby’s in New York on Friday. —PTI

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