by Mark Twain
48.38–41 I lost patience and telegraphed Bliss . . . sale within the required time] No such telegram has been found, but in a bitter letter of 22 July 1869 Clemens accused Bliss of deliberately causing “annoying & damaging delays” by promoting books by other authors. He claimed, sarcastically, that he desired only “to be informed from time to time what future season of the year the publication is postponed to, & why.” Bliss explained that the book had initially been late because of the large number of illustrations; he had then decided to postpone it until the fall to increase sales. The copyright was registered on 28 July, and canvassing began in early August (L3: 22 July 1869 to Bliss, 284–85, 286 n. 1; 1 Aug 1869 to Bliss, 287 n. 1; 12 Aug 1869 to Bliss, 291–92, 292–94 n. 1; Hirst 1975, 255–57).
48.41–49.1 In nine months . . . seventy thousand dollars’ profit to the good] In 1903 Clemens calculated that by “February or March” 1870 the American Publishing Company had earned about $91,000 net profit on The Innocents Abroad, $20,000 of which had gone to pay off debts. Calculations based on the company’s bindery records suggest a slightly lower net profit in the first nine months of sales, about $85,000 (SLC 1903a; Hirst 1975, 314–17).
Autobiographical Dictation, 23 May 1906
49.21–24 I made my contract for “The Innocents Abroad” . . . forbidding me to publish books with any other firm] The contract for The Innocents Abroad, drawn up by Elisha Bliss and signed on 16 October 1868, contains no such exclusivity clause (“Contract for The Innocents Abroad,” L2, 421–22). The contract for Roughing It, however, made nearly two years later, stipulated that Clemens was “not to write . . . any other book unless for said company during the preparation & sale of said manuscript & book” (“Contract for Roughing It,” L4, 565–66).
49.31–33 that I should surrender to him such royalties as might be due me . . . eight hundred dollars cash] In late 1869 Clemens considered “prosecuting Webb in the N.Y. Courts” for an unspecified grievance involving the book; he hoped that Webb would “yield up the copyright & plates of the Jumping Frog, if I let him off from paying me money. Then I shall break up those plates” (22 Jan 1870 to Bliss, L4, 34, 35 n. 5). He decided against legal action, however, and negotiated a settlement with Webb a year later. In a letter of 22 December 1870 to Bliss he said, “I bought my Jumping Frog from Webb—gave him what he owed me ($60000,), and $800 cash, & 300 remaining copies of the book, & also took $128 worth of unprinted paper off his hands.” The payment of $600 evidently represented a 10 percent royalty on 4,000 books: four days later he admitted that he had “fully expected the ‘Jumping Frog[’] to sell 50,000 copies & it only sold 4,000.” A statement prepared the same month by the printers, John A. Gray and Green, listed a total of 4,076 books printed (L4: 22 Dec 1870 to Bliss, 281, 282 n. 4; 26 Dec 1870 to Drake, 287; ET&S1, 545 n. 43).
50.11–14 bound and unbound “Jumping Frogs” . . . six hundred more that should have come to me on royalties] There is no evidence to support Clemens’s claim that Webb owed him $600 in royalties for 4,000 “inherited” books (see the note at 49.31–33). The 1870 settlement had not satisfied him, however; in April 1875 he claimed that Webb had “swindled me on a verbal publishing contract on my first book (Sketches), (8 years ago) & now he has got caught himself & appeals to me for help. I have advised him to do as I did—make the best of a bad bargain & be wiser next time” (8 Apr 1875 to Webb, L6, 442–43 n. 1).
50.22–23 when I became notorious through the publication of “The Innocents Abroad,”] The Innocents Abroad was a huge success: eight years after publication, in 1877, 119,870 copies had been sold, earning Clemens royalties of approximately $21,876 (RI 1993, 891 n. 278). Clemens’s reputation also spread to England, where two publishers—John Camden Hotten and George Routledge and Sons—sold nearly 200,000 copies of their editions.
50.42 About 1872 I wrote another book, “Roughing It.”] The account that follows, in which Clemens describes his negotiations and agreements with Bliss and the American Publishing Company for the publication of Roughing It and A Tramp Abroad, essentially duplicates—with minor variations—the version he gives in the Autobiographical Dictation of 21 February 1906 (see AutoMT1, 369–72 and notes on 596–97).
52.14 Newton Case] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 24 May 1906, note at 53.19–20.
52.16–17 Sixty-four thousand copies . . . had been sold, and my half of the profit was thirty-two thousand dollars] These figures reflect sales and royalties of A Tramp Abroad for the entire first year (7 Mar 1881 to Osgood, MH-H, in MTLP, 133–34).
Autobiographical Dictation, 24 May 1906
53.7–9 I . . . proposed that the Company cancel the contracts] In late 1881 and early 1882 Clemens considered bringing a lawsuit against the American Publishing Company for charging him excessive costs in the manufacture of A Tramp Abroad, but his “bottom object” was “to frighten them into giving up all my copyrights to me.” He believed that he could make his copyrights pay “$25,000 a year, right along. They now pay me less than $3,000” (26 Oct 1881 and 12 Apr 1882 to Webster, NPV, in MTBus, 173–74, 184–85).
53.19–20 I repeated it, and proceeded to say unkind things about his theological seminary] Newton Case (1807–90) established a printing business in Hartford in 1830, which he expanded over the years, with a series of partners, into one of the largest in New England. The firm prospered for decades under the name Case, Lockwood and Brainard, although Case retired from active participation in 1858 to pursue other commercial interests. A devout Christian and an original member of the Asylum Hill Congregational Church, Case was also a trustee of the Hartford Seminary and made generous donations to its library (Hartford Courant: “Obituary. Newton Case,” 16 Sept 1890, 1; “Hartford Theological Seminary,” 29 Apr 1890, 2).
53.28 Judge What’s-his-name, a director] George Shepard Gilman (1825–86), a former Hartford city prosecuting attorney and judge of the Hartford police court, was an American Publishing Company director in the 1870s and 1880s (Connecticut Historical Society 2012; 7 May 1870 to Bliss, L4, 127 n. 1; Geer 1882, 453; 1886, 556).
53.32–34 carried my next book to James R. Osgood of Boston . . . “Old Times on the Mississippi.”] As in the previous dictation, Clemens substantially repeats his account in the Autobiographical Dictation of 21 February 1906 (AutoMT1, 369–72). He consistently refers to Life on the Mississippi (1883) as “Old Times on the Mississippi,” the title of the series of articles in the 1875 Atlantic Monthly that were reprinted in chapters 4–17. It was not Clemens’s “next book”: see the note at 54.11–13.
54.11–13 I think that that was Osgood’s first effort, not his third . . . after his failure with “The Prince and the Pauper,”] Clemens’s first publication with Osgood was a booklet containing only two sketches: A True Story, and the Recent Carnival of Crime (1877). This was followed by The Prince and the Pauper (1881), a collection of sketches entitled The Stolen White Elephant, Etc. (1882), and Life on the Mississippi (see AutoMT1, 597 n. 372.25–27).
54.15–16 old and particular friend of mine unloaded a patent on me] In a June 1879 letter to Frank Bliss (son of Elisha), Clemens praised a patented process owned by Daniel Slote (1828?–82), a friend from the Quaker City excursion, which was used for printing illustrations. In this process, called Kaolatype, “the pictures are not transferred, but drawn on a hard mud surface. It looks like excellent wood engraving, whereas all these other processes are miserably weak & shammy” (10 June 1879 to Bliss [1st], Letters 1876–1880). The “mud surface” was a steel plate covered with kaolin (a type of clay), from which a mold was formed to make plates for printing. In February 1880 Clemens paid Slote $20,000 for four-fifths of the stock in the Kaolatype Engraving Company and became its president. He then hired a “young German” metallurgist named Charles Sneider to adapt the process for stamping book covers, wallpaper, and leather (Letters 1876–1880: 26 Feb 1880 to OC; 20 Mar 1880 to Bliss; 27 Nov 1880 to OC; Krass 2007, 108–10).
54.20–21 That raven . . . the dove didn’t report for duty] Genes
is 8:7–12.
54.21–22 After a time, and half a time, and another time] Revelation 12:14: “a time, and times, and half a time”; cf. Daniel 12:7.
54.22–23 put the patent into the hands of Charles L. Webster, who had married a niece of mine] In the spring of 1881, after a year of pouring money into the project, Clemens hired his nephew-in-law, Charles L. Webster (husband of Annie Moffett Webster, his sister Pamela’s daughter), to manage the company and investigate Slote and Sneider (N&J2, 352–53, 390–91; for Webster see AutoMT1, 486 n. 79.21–22).
54.26 when I had lost forty-two thousand dollars on that patent] Webster proved that Sneider was a fraud, and that he and Slote were conspiring to swindle Clemens: the sample impressions that Sneider had supplied had not been created by Kaolatype. Clemens’s belief in the process persisted, however. In 1882 he suggested it be used to produce the illustrations for Life on the Mississippi, but the artist found it unsatisfactory and refused. The invention proved a failure (N&J2, 392–93; 6 May 1881 and 24 Nov 1881 to Webster, NPV, in MTBus, 153–54, 178–79; Osgood to SLC, 5 June 1882, CU-MARK).
54.28 That same friend was ready with another patent] No additional patent promoted by Slote has been identified.
54.32–34 arrived with a wonderful invention . . . Mr. Richards] In 1877 Clemens’s old friend Frank Fuller persuaded him to invest in a company that he managed, the New York Vaporizing Company, which was financing H. C. Bowers to develop a new type of steam generator. Bowers’s machine was built, but did not run, and by early 1878 Clemens had lost $5,000. Charles B. Richards (1833–1919) was a mechanical engineer who had invented a pressure indicator for steam engines (N&J2, 12 n. 4, 459 n. 90, 491; Fuller to SLC, 15 May 1877, CU-MARK; Asher 2011).
55.9–11 I took some stock in a Hartford company . . . with a new kind of steam pulley] In early 1881 Clemens bought $14,500 worth of stock in the Hartford Engineering Company, which intended to build a factory for making steam-powered pulleys. In December 1887 the failed company settled with its creditors; Clemens recovered $1,897 (6 Mar 1881 to PAM, transcripts in CU-MARK; N&J2, 491; Bunce to SLC, 2 Dec 1887, CU-MARK).
55.14–16 I invented a scrap-book . . . in the hands of that old particular friend of mine] Clemens first mentioned his idea for a pregummed scrapbook in August 1872, and patented what he called “Mark Twain’s Patent Self-Pasting Scrap Book” in June 1873. Slote, Woodman and Company began selling the book in several sizes in late 1876. Sales were brisk—for example, in the second half of 1877, 26,310 scrapbooks were sold, earning Clemens about $1,100 in royalties. On 5 June 1881 he told Webster, “The Scrapbook gravels me because while they have been paying me about $1800 or $2000 a year, I judge it ought to have been 3 times as much” (ViU). In February 1882, after Slote’s death, he told Mary Mason Fairbanks that “Dan stole from me . . . he has swindled me out of many thousands of dollars.” Although sales diminished in later years, the scrapbook remained his only profitable patent (21 Feb 1882 to Fairbanks, CSmH; Slote, Woodman and Company to SLC, 12 Jan 1878, Scrapbook 10:33, CU-MARK; N&J2, 12 n. 2).
54.23–24 They failed inside of three days] Slote, Woodman and Company failed in July 1878. After settling with its creditors for 30 cents on the dollar, the firm reorganized as Daniel Slote and Company and continued to market the scrapbook (20 Aug 1878 to Fuller, Letters 1876–1880; N&J2, 392 n. 119).
54.26–32 Senator John P. Jones was going to start a rival . . . we began business] Jones, a wealthy silver-mine owner, served as a U.S. senator from Nevada in 1873–1903. He organized the “rival” Hartford Accident Insurance Company in mid-1874, offering $200,000 of capital stock. He subscribed for $75,000, and Clemens for $50,000, 25 percent of which he was required to pay for immediately. George B. Lester (1827?–94), Jones’s son-in-law, was actuary as well as secretary of the new company; both he and Clemens were on the board of directors. The company discontinued business in September 1876 (“Death Record,” Los Angeles Times, 17 Jan 1894, 8; link note following 28 June 1874 to Dickinson, L6, 170–72; “The Hartford Accident Insurance Co.,” Hartford Courant, 21 Sept 1876, 2; for Jones see AutoMT1, 496 n. 104.16–17; for Joseph T. Goodman, proprietor of the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise and Clemens’s lifelong friend, see AutoMT1, 535 n. 225.3–5, 544 n. 252.32–253.1).
55.35–36 hotel which he had bought, (the St. James)] The St. James Hotel at Broadway and Twenty-sixth Street, built in 1859, was purchased in 1869 by “two gentlemen who were backed financially by Senator Jones of Nevada”; Lester was listed as its proprietor in 1876 (“Sale of St. James Hotel,” New York Times, 15 Aug 1896, 9; Disturnell 1876, 287).
56.12–15 Jones had bought a piece of the State of California . . . in debt for these properties] In January 1875 Jones paid $150,000 for a two-thirds interest in a large rancho in Southern California. There he helped to lay out the town of Santa Monica, hoping to develop it into a major seaport. He built a railroad from Santa Monica to Los Angeles with plans to extend it to his mining interests in Inyo County, on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada. In mid-1877, when his mines were played out and he had spent nearly a million dollars, his debts forced him to sell the line to the Southern Pacific Railroad (Ingersoll 1908, 144–45, 152–53).
56.23–29 Mr. Slee of our Elmira coal firm . . . There are not many John P. Joneses in the world] John D. F. Slee was the chief officer of the Langdon family’s coal business. He—possibly accompanied by Clemens—met with Jones in New York in late March 1878 and persuaded him to make restitution. Shortly before that, Clemens recorded a less charitable view of Jones in his notebook, calling him a “lying thief” (N&J2, 54–55; AutoMT1, 578 n. 321.25–27).
56.34 General Hawley] Joseph Roswell Hawley was editor and part owner of the Hartford Courant (AutoMT1, 576 n. 317.23–24).
56.37–57.8 Graham Bell . . . first one that was ever used in a private house in the world] Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) obtained his first telephone patent in March 1876. In early 1877 only six telephones were actually in use, but by November of that year “three thousand telephones were leased with the apparatus needed for their practical use.” When Clemens installed his line to the Courant office sometime in late December 1877 or January 1878, it was not the first in Hartford, but was quite possibly the first in a private home. On 24 January he wrote to a friend, “as the Courant is in the center of the business district this telephone is a great convenience to me when I want to send for something in a hurry; but the advantage is all on one side. I get all the benefit & they get all the bother” (24 Jan 1878 to Daggett, Letters 1876–1880; Thomas A. Watson 1926, 76, 134; “The Telephone,” Hartford Courant, 5 June 1877, 2; Hubbard to SLC, 17 Dec 1877, CU-MARK).
57.15–18 We were gone fourteen months . . . his telephone stock was emptying greenbacks into his premises] The family returned in early September 1879, almost seventeen months after their departure. The National Bell Telephone Company, a consolidation of several previous companies, was formed in March of that year with capitalization of $850,000. In June its share price was about $110, but by December its value had risen to $995 (N&J2, 46–49; Thomas A. Watson 1926, 171; Fagen 1975, 30).
Autobiographical Dictation, 26 May 1906
57.27–28 Webster, from the village of Dunkirk, New York] Charles L. Webster was actually from Fredonia, New York, where in early 1870 Clemens had relocated his mother, sister, niece, and nephew (Jane Clemens, Pamela Moffett, and her children, Annie and Samuel) from St. Louis. Dunkirk, a busy port and railroad terminus on Lake Erie, was three miles north of Fredonia (21 Apr 1870 to OC, L4, 115 n. 2; MTBus, 239).
58.3 I had paid Bixby a hundred dollars, and it was borrowed money] Horace E. Bixby agreed to take on Clemens as an apprentice pilot in 1857 for a fee of $500. Clemens borrowed $100 from his brother-in-law, William A. Moffett, for a down payment; it is not clear how much of the total he ultimately paid (link note following 5 Aug 1856 to HC, L1, 70–71).
58.17–27 I erected Webster into a firm . . . Webster was his own sub-agent] Clemens has jumped ahead in h
is chronology by a year, skipping the events of late 1882 and 1883 entirely. In the fall of 1882, Clemens expanded Webster’s duties to include acting as the New York general agent for subscription sales of his forthcoming book, Life on the Mississippi, which Osgood planned to publish the following spring. On 9 September Clemens told Webster, “Go to studying up the methods & mysteries of General-Agency right away,” and Webster made plans to visit several agencies to learn the trade. On 19 September Clemens suggested that Osgood could “probably get some chap or girl for you who has served a General Agent in Boston—somebody who can help you, for wages, in New York, & teach you the methods,” but no office staff has been identified (9 Sept 1882 and 19 Sept 1882 to Webster [1st], NPV, in MTBus, 195–96, 199). The man who “knew all about” subscription book sales may have been Howard N. Hinckley, a former general agent for the American Publishing Company who was now operating in Chicago. Hinckley was willing to give advice, and in addition—because he planned to leave the book business—he offered to sell the “lists of agents who have been employed on all the Twain books in this section for the past seven to ten years.” Clemens agreed to buy the list for $500 (Hinckley to Webster, 2 Oct 1882, on verso of Webster to SLC, 5 Oct 1882, CU-MARK; Webster to SLC, 11 Oct 1882 and 24 Oct 1882, CU-MARK; 18 Oct 1882 to Osgood, ViU, in MTLP, 159 nn. 1–2). By October 1882 Webster had moved his office from Fulton Street to 658 Broadway, at the corner of Bond Street. Although over the next months he occasionally used stationery headed “Charles L. Webster, Publisher,” he was in fact only a general agent. In early March he expanded his business by arranging to take charge of the New York sales of all of Osgood’s publications. In 1883 Clemens grew dissatisfied with Osgood’s handling of the sales of Life on the Mississippi, and wanted to publish his next book, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, elsewhere. Although he briefly considered giving it to the American Publishing Company, by the end of February 1884 he had decided to establish his own company, with Webster as its titular head. Webster, no longer just a “general agent,” was entrusted with managing the entire production of the book (Webster to American Publishing Co., 26 Oct 1882, ViU; Webster to PAM, 2 Mar 1883, CU-MARK; HF 2003, 697–98).