Autobiography of Mark Twain

by Mark Twain

  At the end of 1902 I wrote some Christian Science articles, and published three of them in the North American Review. The rest of the articles were not to be published serially, but were to be joined to the first three and issued in book form; and that announcement was made. Duneka had the remaining matter set up and forwarded to me in the form of galley-proofs. I read and revised these and put the book in shape for the composing-room. I took it to Mr. Duneka; he did not break out into any enthusiasms about it, in fact he looked embarrassed. I inquired as to what might be the matter, and he developed the fact that he was afraid of the Christian Scientists. He said they were growing very strong, and would it be to my interest to publish such a book and antagonize this growing power? also, would it be to the interest of Harper and Brothers to antagonize that power? I said that if he was afraid, I didn’t wish to push a dangerous book upon him, and I would publish it elsewhere; but he said “No; by no means no, if the book must be published, we wish to publish it ourselves.” But I said I didn’t want a publisher who was afraid, and I would rather take it elsewhere. Also, I said that my interest in a book lay in the writing of it, so it was not a matter of great consequence to me whether it was published or not. Let it be suppressed. But how was it to be suppressed? The announcement had gone forth that it was to be published in book form at once. How was the suppression to be managed? Mr. Duneka said that that would be very easy, not a line need go into print about it; that he would privately inform the trade that it was found that the book could not be issued in time for the spring trade, therefore its publication had been postponed until the fall. He said that by that time the trade would have forgotten that there was any such book, and we should not hear anything more about it. It was then agreed that Mr. Duneka should quiet the book down and prepare it for its grave without letting anything get into print about it. This was a distinct understanding, a plain and straightforward agreement, yet my back was hardly turned before a notice to this effect appeared in the Publishers’ Weekly of April 11th, 1903:

  Neither Harper and Brothers nor the North American Review will publish Mark Twain’s Christian Science book. All orders have been canceled.

  Only one interpretation can be put upon this language: that Harper and Brothers had refused my book, and were offensively proud of having done it. This was my second experience with Mr. Duneka as a promise-keeper.

  He probably supposed that I would never see that notice, and in fact it was not likely that I would see it; but a Pittsburgh bookseller sent it to me, and inquired why I had lost my grip and was afraid to issue the book. That was three years ago. Inquiries followed, by letter, from persons in this country and in England, and I explained to them that the publication of the book was not my affair, that it was in the hands of Harper and Brothers, and they could best explain why it was not issued. Then other letters began to come from these inquirers, which said that upon application to Harper and Brothers for an explanation of why the book was not issued, the reply was that I had desired them to suppress the book.

  I attributed all these slynesses to Mr. Duneka, who is the manager at Harpers, and could tell the inquirers the truth if he wanted to, and could prevent the dissemination of spurious information if he so desired. The inquiries continued to come, and at last I suggested that perhaps it would be best to issue the book. Then Mr. Duneka had a happy idea, and said he would make that book volume XXIV of my Collected Works, and sell it only to persons ordering a whole set, and in that way no mention of the book would get into print, and no harm would be done. Mr. Duneka has reiterated his promise to get out of the scrape in that way several times. Up to date he has not kept his word, and I have never suspected him of intending to keep it. As late as three months ago, one of these inquiry-letters came to me from England. I referred the writer to Harper and Brothers. They answered him, and promptly put the blame on me, as usual.

  Some time ago I wrote an unfriendly article about the Butcher, King Leopold of Belgium, and offered it to Mr. Duneka. He accepted it, and thought he ought to publish it as soon as possible, because he had employed Mr. Nevinson to make a tour through Portuguese Africa and expose the cruelties which the Portuguese were perpetrating upon the helpless blacks there, and my article would have an opportunity to precede Mr. Nevinson’s exposures and break the road in front of him. But the article did not appear. It continued to fail to appear, and kept on failing to appear. Finally, Mr. Nevinson’s first article appeared, and the position was changed—he was breaking ground for me. I thought I knew what the trouble was. Mr. Duneka is a Roman Catholic, and anything like a criticism of that Church, or of an individual connected with it, gives Mr. Duneka the dry gripes. Finally, I asked him when that article was going to appear. He explained that Mr. Nevinson’s articles were ended now, and it would be very bad policy to follow them with my article, because I would overshadow him and blot him out. This was very complimentary, but I was not fishing for compliments, and it was not altogether satisfactory. When Mr. Duneka needs a pretext for not doing a thing he is handy in finding one. When time and circumstances take the tuck out of that pretext, he is handy in finding a fresh one to take its place. I have noticed these ingenuities more than once, and have admired them. It was plain that Mr. Duneka was afraid of that article. He is interesting. He grows more and more interesting every day. He has inspirations which could enter no human head but his own. A short story called “A Horse’s Tale,” which will begin in the August number of Harper’s Magazine, has for its principal stage the bull ring in Spain. In the proof sheets Mr. Duneka suggested that we change Spain to Mexico, and have the performance there. The fact that the performance could not perform in Mexico with any considerable effect did not trouble Mr. Duneka. What he was shuddering about was that in the story the Spanish priests hurried through their sacred functions on Sundays in order to get to the bull ring in time to see the butcheries. The fact that this was merely a fact and not an invention could not reconcile Mr. Duneka to its publication. I judge that that was the trouble with him; he did not explain what the trouble was. There could be nothing else in the story that could explain his attitude. I have half a dozen novels half finished, and now and then as the years go by I add a chapter or two to one or another of them as the notion strikes me, and if I live forty years I shall finish several of the six. Last summer, Mr. Duneka wanted to look at one of these stories, a story whose scene is laid in the Middle Ages, and in it he found a drunken and profane Catholic priest—a spectacle which was as common in Europe four hundred years ago as Dunekas are in hell to-day. Of course it made him shudder, and he wanted that priest reformed or left out. Mr. Duneka seems to do four-fifths of the editing of everything that comes to Harper and Brothers for publication, and he certainly has a good literary instinct and judgment as long as his religion does not get into his way.

  My experience has taught me that Mr. Duneka’s statements are not valuable, that his promises are not to be relied upon, and that he is very timid, even pathetically timid; but that he would set a trap for me, and try to cheat me out of a small sum of money is a new departure in his character. I never suspected him of any disposition to pick my pocket, until now.

  My contract with the Harpers of three years ago puts all my books permanently in their possession; not only my old books, but also any new books which I may write. The old books are listed in that contract, and among them appears “Mark Twain’s Library of Humor.” The Harpers pay me one and the same royalty upon all those old books (20 per cent). Now if Harper and Brothers choose to renew the dress of any one of these old books and put it on the market, they do not have to ask me for permission; they can do it without saying anything to me. They would only need to pay me the 20 per cent royalty. They could issue the old “Library of Humor” without saying anything to me about it, though they would know when they did it that I would be very much obliged to them if they did nothing of the kind. I made up that book a good many years ago, at a time when I thought that such a book would be valuable and popular. I to
ok the utmost pains with its preparation. I also paid out money in order that the work might be well done—five thousand dollars. I got two experts to help me, Mr. Howells and Charles Hopkins Clark, now editor of the Hartford Courant. I bought all the humorous books I could find. Mr. Clark read them carefully through, marking each article with a capital “A,” or “B,” or “C,” according to whether it was his first, second, or third choice. Then Mr. Howells went over the indicated articles, and marked his first and second choice. Then I went over them myself and made the final choice. A great deal of honest work was expended upon the book. It has lain out of print now for as many as seven years, and I have had no desire to see it dug up and sent adrift again. Mr. Duneka said that he had heard that a “pirate” out West was going to republish the book, on the plea that its abandonment for so many years had nullified the copyright. Therefore, he thought we ought to beat that game by “ostensibly” republishing the book ourselves, in the interest of my reputation, and beat that “pirate.” He told me that we should only need to set up that old book again (the plates were long ago destroyed), and issue it in some exceedingly cheap form, and make a merely “ostensible” publication of it (not a real publication), put a few copies on sale, and this game would beat the “pirate.” I said “Go ahead and do it,” for I was not aware that I was now dealing with a “pirate” close at home. I thought he proposed to make it a fifty-cent book in paper covers. I cannot swear that he said that, but I can swear that that was the impression which he gave me, and I know that he intended to give me that impression. Then he said that as there was “no money in the book for either of us” (those are his words), he would not be able to pay me much of a royalty. I said I was indifferent as to that—make the royalty what he pleased. He suggested 3 per cent. I wrote him and consented to that. By and by he sent me a paper to sign, and of course I signed it; also, of course, I did just as I did with those ancient publishers: read it without studying it; that would inevitably happen, particularly with Mr. Duneka, whose honesty I had not doubted. I made several contracts with Bliss after the fatal one, but I was always suspecting him then, and I examined those contracts very carefully; but I don’t examine contracts carefully when I think I am dealing with a man who is clean and honest. I shall be ready for Mr. Duneka next time. This paper which I signed had one detail in it which I did not notice, and to which I would have attached no importance if I had noticed it. That detail privileges Mr. Duneka to add some new matter to that old book and “bring it up to date.” If I had been suspecting Mr. Duneka, that might have made me stop and think, and also wonder why you want new matter in a book which is not really being published, but only “ostensibly” published? why you want to bring a book “up to date” when there is “no money in it for either of us”? but, as I say, I never noticed that phrase, and if I had noticed it, I should have thought it was only one of Mr. Duneka’s heaven-sent inspirations and had nothing in it.

  About the end of last April, Mr. Duneka began to vomit “Libraries of Humor” upon the public, and by and by I noticed two things: that these libraries were not my old book, and that the price was not cheap. Before I could rise to the size of the game Mr. Duneka was playing, he had spewed out three of these volumes and was ready to spew another. I have never examined one of these books further than to read through the Table of Authors who had furnished the material. I saw that they were modern authors. It may turn out that Mr. Duneka has put in one, or two, or three articles from the old book, but if this is true, it is neither according to the original agreement between him and me, nor in accordance with the paper which I signed. He has advertised the book largely, enthusiastically, shoutingly. He has called it “Mark Twain’s Library of Humor,” which it is not. He has advertised me as being the “editor” of it, whereas I had nothing to do with its construction, nor have I ever edited a line of it.

  When an author is wholly unknown, his royalty is, as a rule, 10 per cent; when he is better known it reaches 15 per cent; and when he is widely known it is 20 per cent. If Mr. Duneka had published the old book as it stood, without speaking to me, our contract would oblige him to pay me 20 per cent; but he shrewdly beguiled me into the notion that the book was not being really published, that there was “no money in it for his house or for me,” and that therefore, in the circumstances, 3 per cent would be enough to pay me. I didn’t care whether he paid me any per cent or not, I was not interested in the matter; but if he had come to me and said that he proposed to get up a “Library of Humor” himself, a new one, full of fresh matter, and that he would like to get me to put my name to it as the constructor and editor of it; and that he was going to advertise it largely, charge six dollars for it, (which is double the price of my old “Library”), and sell as many sets as he could, would he venture to ask me to accept 3 per cent royalty as pay for my share of this contemptible crime, this bare-faced proposal to swindle the public with a book which was not mine in any sense? It is unbelievable. If I try to imagine Macmillan, or Scribner, or Doubleday, or any other respectable publisher, proposing to me to let him put my name on a book which I did not make, and accept of 3 per cent royalty, or 10 per cent, or 20 per cent, or 100 per cent, I find myself unable to conceive of such a romance. None of these publishers would think of asking me to assume the fatherhood of a book which I was neither to prepare nor to edit, and accept eighteen cents as my reward out of a selling price of six dollars.

  I have directed Mr. Duneka, through my legal counsel, to suppress that fraudulent book at once, and stop robbing the public under my name, and he has promised to do so. The situation is unthinkably grotesque. The book has been out such a little while that the profit on it cannot have amounted to more than ten or twelve thousand dollars. Mr. Duneka would know that I would repudiate the book as soon as I recognized its character. He could hope to get nothing out of it but that ten or twelve thousand dollars, and he would then have to shelve it; and so, as I say, it is unthinkable that the manager of a millionaire concern like the Harper Corporation would be willing to destroy the pleasant relations existing between the Corporation and me for so small a sum as ten or twelve thousand dollars. It would seem that none but a fool would think of such an idea as that, and yet I may be mistaken—possibly it is wisdom. In these days of big graft, and little graft, and universal graft, it is difficult to say what is wisdom and what isn’t. It is a marvelous spectacle, an incredible spectacle, this millionaire corporation filching pennies from its own child! It seems to me that this is reducing graft to its cheapest and meanest terms.

  Monday, July 30, 1906

  Mr. Clemens returns to Dublin after a four or five weeks’ vacation spent partly in New York attending to business matters connected with “Library of Humor,” and partly at Fairhaven with Mr. Rogers—The Laura Wright episode; first meeting on Mississippi steamboat, and letter just received.

  I am back again in this country house in the New Hampshire hills after an absence of four or five weeks—since about the 25th of June. The chapter which precedes the present one, and which is dated New York July 17th, explains the cause of this absence. I dictated that chapter in New York, at the time, in order that I might get the details crystallized into language while they were fresh in my mind.

  The sudden spewing of that “Library of Humor” upon an unoffending public, under my name and ostensibly by my authority, was one of the most unexpected things that has ever happened to me. For cool impudence and cold rascality, I doubt if the match of it can be found anywhere in the history of book publishing. I went down to New York full of a warm desire to make trouble, but of course I consulted H. H. Rogers before committing any overt acts, for many years of edifying experience have taught me that whenever in a matter of business I proceed without first taking Mr. Rogers’s judgment upon the matter, I do the wrong thing. In the present case, he advised that I make no public trouble; no public exposure of Mr. Duneka. He said that an exposure of Duneka would be an exposure of the House of Harper and Brothers, whereas the House of Harper and
Brothers was not present to defend itself, since Colonel Harvey, the head of it, was in Europe. Edward Lauterbach, my legal counsel, being of the like opinion, no noise was made.

  Mr. Lauterbach telephoned Duneka to come and talk about the matter. Duneka was deposited in one of Mr. Lauterbach’s offices, and Lauterbach wanted me to go in there and talk with him. I said he had already advised me not to make any trouble—still I was willing to take the new advice, but thought it would be best if I should first rehearse before Lauterbach and the Harper lawyer, Larkin, who was present, the remarks I should make to Mr. Duneka. I rehearsed—and they both said “Try it in a church first”—and they agreed that I could do more good staying out of that conference than by trying to assist it.

  I had several points to make, but was quite willing to confine myself to the principal one and leave the others alone until the head of the Corporation should get back from England, which would be in the course of a week or two. That principal point was the instant suppression of that bastard book and the destruction of the plates and all copies of the book that were in the Harpers’ hands. That was all that I required of Mr. Duneka, and he was effusively glad to comply, and was full of apologies and regrets for what he had done.

  While waiting for Harvey’s return from England, I lived on board Mr. Rogers’s yacht, nights, lying at anchor far down the Bay, where it was cool, returning to the city at breakfast-time, mornings, and living at home, at 21 Fifth Avenue, during the days, whence I transacted such other business as came my way, by telephone. Fridays, at 9 a.m., we sailed for Fairhaven, Massachusetts, Mr. Rogers’s country home, a trip of about eight hours, by that smart boat. We spent the Saturday, and half of each Sunday, there, then sailed for New York again at lunch-time, Sundays. It was the pleasantest vacation I have ever had in my life, and I was not gratified when my business finally released me and permitted me to get back to the hills and go to work.