The catalog came the other day and it is fairly astonishing stuff.

Karanovich didn't collect just any old Twain-related letters, books etc.
He collected items that resonate amazingly for anyone who knows much
about Twain's life and feels a connection with him.  A few specimens:

Lot 12 is a page of Twain's notes for his very first platform
performance, in San Francisco in October 1866.

Lot 218 is the dog-eared copy of Rudyard Kipling's *Kim*; in the front,
Twain jotted a note saying he was reading the book for the sixth time.

In one letter (Lot 24) he writes to Livy about their Hartford house,
then nearing completion.  "You may look at the house or the grounds from
any point of view you choose, & they are simply exquisite. . . . It is a
*home* -- & the word never had so much meaning before."

Lot 82 is a letter written from Guildford, England, dated August 14,
1896.  Part of it reads, "We are troubled a little by news that our
eldest daughter is ill in America.  We cannot all get away immediately,
but Mrs. Clemens & Clara will sail tomorrow . . . .  Think of it -- we
can't get an answer to our cablegrams!  We began telegraphing at 11 this
morning & now at 11 p.m. we still have no answer & cannot imagine what
the trouble is."

Makes me kind of wish some benefactor would buy the whole kit & caboodle
and donate it to the Mark Twain Project or the Twain house in Hartford.
Bill Gates, are you listening?

Pete Salwen