To
Orion Clemens 30 April 1871 • Elmira, N.Y.(MS: NPV, UCCL00609)
Elmira, 30.
Dear Bro:
I do not wish to write on the subject of articles any
more. LeaveⒶemendation me out of the paper except once in 36 months., & don’t write me anything more about it—either you or Bliss. I know
that you both mean the very best for me, but you are wrong.
You both wrote me discouraging letters. YoursⒶemendation stopped my pen for two days—Bliss’s stopped it for three. Hereafter my wife will
read my Hartford letters
& if they are of the the same nature, keep them out of my hands. The idea of a newspaper editor & a
publisher plying with dismal letters a man who is under contract to write humorous books for them!1explanatory note
I sent Bliss MSS yesterday, up to about 100 pages2explanatory note of MSd.
Don’t be in a great hurry getting out the specimen chapters for canvassers, for I
want the chapter I
am writing now in it—& it is away up to page 750 of the MS.3explanatory note I would like to select the “specimen” chapters myself (along with Joe Goodman, who
writes by my side
every day up at the farm).4explanatory note Joe & I have a 600-page book in contemplation which will wake up the nation. It is
a thing which David Gray
& I have talked over with David Gray a good deal, & he wanted me to do it right &
just & well—which I couldn’t without a
reⒶemendation man to do the accurate drudgery and some little other writing. But Joe is the party.
This present book will be a tolerable
success—possibly an excellent success if the chief newspapers start it off well—but the
other book will be an awful success.5explanatory note The only trouble is, how I am to hang on to Joe till I publish this present book
& another before I begin on the joint one.6explanatory note
When is the selection to be made for the specimen chapters?
Ys
Sam
Textual Commentary
30 April 1871 • To
Orion Clemens
• Elmira, N.Y. • UCCL00609
Source text(s):
MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV).
Previous Publication:
L4, 386–88; MTBus, 118–19; Chester L. Davis 1954, 4.
Provenance:
see McKinney Family Papers in Description of Provenance.
I have been going to drop you a line for some days, but am so busy, I hardly get time
to write anything except
what is absolutely necessary. I want to say to you this. We go to work on Pros. Monday,
& shall get it out very
quickly— I fear your brother has written in a manner to give you wrong impressions
of my views. I have said to him that the
first part of a book alone, is not sufficient to make a proper prospectus of. I of
course cannot get up full plate engravings, until I
know the subject, & then it is well to have a variety of matter in it— I have not
spoken of the position of
affairs thinking it of no acc, but perhaps, it might be well to say, that standing
where I do, with so many agents all over, coming in
contact with the masses, I can feel the pulse of the community, as well as any other
person; I do not think there is as much of a
desire to see another book from you as there was 3 months ago. Then anything offered
would sell, people would subscribe to anything of
yours without overhauling or looking at it much. Now they will inspect a Prospectus
closer, & buy more on the strength of
it, than they would have done a few months ago.
Knowing this to be so, I feel particularly anxious to get out a splendid Prospectus one
brim full of good matter, of your own style— I want to reawaken the appetite for the
book—& know of no better means than to show them slices of a rich loaf, & let them
try it—
Consequently I said to your brother, “if he has anything particularly fine lets have it for prospectus.” Another thing is about having anything appear of yours or from your book in our
paper. I
fear you have got the impression that I am so interested in that that I wish to push
& help it, even at the risk of doing
you an injury— Now Friend Clemens be pleased to understand that the paper is always
a secondary consideration with
me— I have kept you & your book uppermost in my mind—& the paper has not had a thought
that
was not subservient to your book. It was started to help sell our books & to ventilate
them &c &c Now
this is my proposed plan to rush your next book.— I did prefer to get out extracts
of it & get just as much
notoriety for them as possible— I proposed to do this very soon—& whet the peoples
appetites for more
of the same— Now then I supposed anything in our paper as coming from the book, should
be of a superior quality &
would be largely copied &c— We may be wrong, & we have this to say now, that to do
away with any
feelings of uneasiness (if they exist) on a/c of this paper if you wish & deem best
that you do not be mentioned in its
columns—in connection with it or with us, nothing from the book be published in it—we
will accede to it
cheerfully. We do not wish any jealousy to spring up on this matter at all— We doubt
the expediency of your withdrawing,
just at this stage of proceedings from public view entirely—yet we may be wrong. We
think an occasional Twainish thing from you, would aid the future sale of the book— Something published from the
book of a rich spicy
nature & credited to it—would be a great help Now there—I have wanted to say this
much. I may have
given advice not needed & not in place. I should not have pretended to have said as
much, were it not I feel very anxious to
make a great success of the book—& think I see clearly how to do it— I really wish
to act every way
best for our mutual interests, & no other way, & would prefer to drop the paper today
where it is, rather than to
have any dissatisfaction on its account arise I have made selections from Mss. here
for Pros. & if you have any choice cutsfurther along in the book for it send them on & I will heave them in. . . . Your
brother says he wrote you Knox had written up something similar to the Bull story—
I never saw it & do not know
anything about it. ItYours struck me as a good thing, every way. Your first chap. is splendid—smacks of the old
style—
(CU-MARK)
In remarking on the diminished public “desire” for a book by Mark Twain, Bliss alluded
to the
damage done by the (Burlesque) Autobiography, a work he had opposed (27 Jan 71 to Sheldon, n. 1click to open letter; 26 Apr 71 to Fairbanks, n. 1).
That is, manuscript for chapters 12–15—which became chapters 12–14 and Appendixes
A and B in Roughing It. The subjects were Clemens’s journey through Utah, his arrival in Salt Lake City,
and his
encounters with Mormons and Mormon history. These chapters were the same ones that
Clemens again claimed, three days later, to have
mailed “yesterday” (3 May 71 to Blissclick to open letter; RI 1993, 814, 851).
Most likely chapter 34, the story of the landslide case hoax. Clemens had probably
reached the end of it or the beginning of
chapter 35 (RI 1993, 814–15, 851). Neither was used for the prospectus.
In addition to his planned novel, Goodman might have been working on some of his poetry
(10 Jan 70 to OLL [2nd]click to open letter; 18
Apr 71 to OCclick to open letter)—or perhaps on The Psychoscope: A Sensational Drama in Five Acts, which he
co-authored with Rollin M. Daggett, another Nevada friend of Clemens’s, and published
in Virginia City in 1871.
The subject of the planned collaborative novel conceivably was Washington, D.C., where,
in July 1870, Clemens had gathered material
that he hoped to use in a book (8 July 70 to OLCclick to open letter; 17 or 24 Aug 70?
to PAM).
MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV).
L4 , 386–88; MTBus , 118–19; Chester L. Davis 1954, 4.
see McKinney Family Papers in Description of Provenance.