SAMUEL L. "MARK TWAIN" CLEMENS - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 9/30 - HFSID 39983

SAMUEL L. CLEMENS (MARK TWAIN). ALS: "S. L. Clemens", 2p, 4½x7 black-bordered stationery, formerly conjoined leaves, now separated. Hotel Metropole [Vienna], no year but probably 1898, September 30. To Mrs. Laura Rothmann. In full: "We are greatly obliged to you for your kindness in sending us the advertisement of du Möblirte Wohnung. Your note was a little delayed, through our removal, but we shall go as early as we can tomorrow & look at the house, as we shall prefer housekeeping to boarding if we can situate ourselves satisfactorily. My wife & I desire to thank you sincerely for your efforts to help us. With my best wishes I am, Dear Madame, Very Truly yours". Samuel and Olivia Clemens and their daughter, Jean, who arrived in Vienna on the evening of September 27, 1897, went to live at the Hotel Metropole, where they spent the winter of 1897-1898. As Clemens was temporarily confined by a sudden attack of gout when he arrived in Vienna and the Clemenses were looking to move from the Metropole later in 1898, this letter was most probably written in 1898 as they considered living in a house rather than a hotel. They decided to move to the Hotel Krantz, spending the winter of 1898-1899 there, leaving Vienna in May 1899 for Sweden. Mid-horizontal fold, not at signature. Slightly soiled at blank margins of first page, lightly worn at edges of black border. "Mark Twain" written in unknown hand at lower margin of signature page. Fine condition.