Explanatory Notes        Apparatus Notes (Ⓐ)

Source: Routledge and Kegan Paul (Ltd) Archives, University College, London, England ([UkL5])

Cue: "Am spending the"

Source format: "MS"

Letter type: "[standard letter]"

Notes:

Last modified:

Revision History: AB

MTPDocEd
To Joseph L. Blamire
10 July 1872 • New Saybrook, Conn. (MS: Routledge, UCCL 00764)
                      george routledge & sons, publishers,
                      booksellers, and importers, 416 broome
                        street, corner of elm street .
                                        new york,           187  
Hartford, Conn, July 10th 1872

Received from Messrs George Routledge and Sons of London by the hands of their American Agent Joseph L. Blamire of 416 Broome street, New York, the sum of Two Hundred and Fifty Dollars in payment for a copy of my book “Innocents Abroad” with revisions, additions, and preface (or prefaces) made by me for them at their request for republication of said book in London. 1explanatory note And I do hereby sell to said George Routledge and Sons all right and title to said additions, revisions, preface or prefaces for republication in London, England; but this payment carries with it no privilege or right whatsoever for the importation or sale of said book into or within the United States of America, nor does it prevent me from using the said revisions, additions, or prefaces in the United States of America should I at any time desire to use the same in my American Edition of said Book. 2explanatory note

Samℓ. L. Clemens.
Fenwick Hall, Saybrook Pt, July 10.3explanatory note

Joseph L. Blamire Esq

Dr Sir: Am spending the summer at this quiet a watering place, & am not feeling a bit industrious; but I like your suggestion so much that I mean to write the other preface at the very earliest feasible moment—& I thank you for it, too.4explanatory note

Ys Truly
Samℓ L. Clemens
Textual Commentary
10 July 1872 • To Joseph L. Blamire • New Saybrook, Conn. • UCCL 00764
Source text(s):

MS, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. The MS is in Volume A–H of George Routledge and Sons’ “Agreement and Copyright Receipts,” folio 186.

Previous Publication:

L5 , 116–17; Grenander 1975, 1.

Provenance:

Blamire presumably forwarded the MS to the Routledges in London.

Explanatory Notes
1 

Blamire had enclosed this receipt for Clemens to sign in a letter dated 9 July (CU-MARK), in which he replied to a letter from Clemens of 6 July, now lost:

UCLC31813

Samuel L. Clemens Esq.

Dear Sir:

Your favor of 6th is duly at hand. In reply I have to say that I received all right the copy of “Innocents Abroad” and sent it promptly to London; (I have no doubt but a part of it will be already in type by the time you receive this letter, as the steamer by which I sent it arrived at Queenstown on the evening of the 7th inst.) and I now have the pleasure of enclosing you our cheque for Two Hundred and Fifty Dollars in payment, which I think you will find correct.

I wish that (notwithstanding the advice which the learned Historian Josephus gives to Authors, Preachers, and such like for their guidance in summer weather) you could get time to write us an additional preface; the one you sent it seems to me will do capitally for one of the volumes and I think our People will be pleased with it, but they write me that they think it indispensable that each of the vols. should have a separate preface. I think a preface somewhat general in its character and bearing date July 1872 would be desirable; a little talk with the English Public about the objects of the tour, the Circumstances that gave rise to it, the peculiarities of American humor, some allusion to Artemus Ward who was a great favorite with them, or any other topic that might suggest itself to you as a fitting subject for a homely, unconventional chat would come very well from you just now; I think you could very well write a couple of pages of something that would come to them with a domestic, home feeling, and that would tend to endear your writings to them and so lead to mutual profit and pleasure in the not distant future.

I enclose a receipt which I will feel obliged if you will sign and return to me for transmission to London.

& remain Dear Sir

v truly yr’s

Joseph L. Blamire

agt for Geo Routledge & Sons

2 

Clemens never used the revised English text in later American editions, although he authorized the Routledge volumes as the basis for Christian Bernhard Tauchnitz’s Continental edition in 1879 (Tauchnitz to SLC, 19 Feb 79, CU-MARK; SLC 1879).

3 

The postmarks on Blamire’s 9 July letter show that it arrived in Hartford on the morning of 10 July and was forwarded to New Saybrook that same evening. It is possible that Clemens did not receive it, however, until the next morning, and that he subscribed the date “July 10” in order to match the date at the head of the receipt.

4 

Clemens’s first preface—along with his marked copy of The Innocents Abroad—had been shipped on the steamship Idaho, which left New York on 26 June and arrived in Queenstown on 7 July. The Routledges must have sent Blamire a cablegram almost immediately, confirming receipt of the book and requesting a second preface (see note 1; 10 July 72 to Blamire, n. 1click to open letter; “Departure of Foreign Mails,” New York Tribune, 25 June 72, 2). On 13 July Blamire cabled back, “Twain promises second preface” (ViU).

Top