21 5th Avenue
Nov. 21, '05.
Dear Sir:
I am greatly troubled by what you say. I wrote Tom Sawyer & Huck Finn for adults exclusively, & it always distressed me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them. The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. I know this by my own experience, & to this day I cherish an unappeased bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again on this side of the grave. Ask that young lady - she will tell you so.
Most honestly do I wish I could say a softening word or two in defence of Huck’s character, since you wish it, but really in my opinion it is no better than God’s (in the Ahab & 97 others), & the rest of the sacred brotherhood.
If there is an Unexpurgated [Bible] in the Children’s Department, won’t you please help that young woman remove Tom & Huck from that questionable companionship?
Sincerely yours,
S. L. Clemens
I imagine it will be an abridged Harry Potter.
Having grown up with that strip I am squicked out by Tom being played by young Billy and Becky Thatcher being drawn like his sister Dolly.
Neat – looks like it’d go great next to my copy of Masterpiece Comics.
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