3 November 1872 • London, England (Transcripts: CtLHi; Will M. Clemens, 29, UCCL 00828)
London, Nov. 3Ⓐemendation
Good for Andrews—new name to me.1explanatory note But I knew perfectly well that Briggs was first rate for the platform.2explanatory note All the readers I ever saw were idiots when it came to selecting humorous pieces for recitation. Andrews must be ofⒶemendation a superior race of them.
Josh’s letter was good—I sent it to Tom Hood.3explanatory note I meant to refer to it in a speech in answer to a regular toast at the annual dinner of the Whitefriars Club Ⓐemendation &Ⓐemendation the chairman had done me the honor to make me his guest & appointed me a seat at his right handⒶemendation & as I knowⒶemendation nearly all of theⒶemendation WhitefriarsⒶemendation I expected to have a gorgeous time.4explanatory note ButⒶemendation I got it into my headⒶemendation that Friday was Thursday &Ⓐemendation so I staidⒶemendation in the country stag-hunting a day too long & when I reached the club last nightⒶemendation nicely shaved & gotten up regardless of expense, I found that the dinner was the night before Ⓐemendation.
I would like to stay here about fifteen or seventy-five years, a body does have such a good time.
IⒶemendation am revampingⒶemendation, polishing & otherwiseⒶemendation fixing up my lecture on Roughing ItⒶemendation & think I will deliver it in London a couple of timesⒶemendation about a month from now, just for fun.5explanatory note Have received invitations & large offersⒶemendation from pretty much allⒶemendation the big English & Scottish towns, but have declined,Ⓐemendation not being fond of railroading. I haven’t been 50 miles from London yet & don’t intend to budge from it till I budge homewards.Ⓐemendation
So Stanley gets $50,000 for 100 nights.6explanatory note That is as it should Ⓐemendation be. They charge $2 to hear Parepa7explanatory note sing 2Ⓐemendation pieces (15Ⓐemendation minutes,Ⓐemendation all told) & if you chargedⒶemendation a dollar to hear one of us fellows squawk,Ⓐemendation it would become the fashion Ⓐemendation to hear usⒶemendation & then the gates of hell could not prevail against us—we would always Ⓐemendation have a full house.
WhenⒶemendation I yell again for less than $500 I’ll be pretty hungry.8explanatory note But I haven’t any intentionsⒶemendation of yelling at any price.
How does Bret Harte make it? Give me the early news.Ⓐemendation 9explanatory note
letter docketed: boston lyceum bureau. redpath & fall. nov 25 1872 Ⓐemendation
The letter from Redpath to which this letter replied is not known to survive. William S. Andrews (1841–1912) was a New York actor and platform speaker. On 14 October 1872, in Boston’s Tremont Temple, he delivered a lecture for Redpath’s Boston Lyceum Bureau entitled “Dialect Humor,” which included at least one reading from Mark Twain’s works—almost certainly “Buck Fanshaw” from chapter 47 of Roughing It. (Andrews would recite this excerpt on 22 November 1872 at a reception for Henry M. Stanley at the Lotos Club in New York, and it became a popular entertainment at the club.) Although the Boston appearance was advertised as an “Extra Lecture”—not part of the regular Boston series—Andrews toured with “Dialect Humor” during the 1872–73 and 1873–74 seasons, sponsored by Redpath’s bureau. In the Lyceum Magazine for the latter season he was described as
one of the best trained and most talented recitationists now living. The most popular comedians and humorists of the day,—the best actors of New York, as well as “Nasby” and “Mark Twain,”—and the press of every city in which he has appeared, have united in extolling his histrionic powers. His lecture gives specimens of nearly all the dialects of the United States and several dialects of the British people. Every dialect is illustrated by a humorous story or poem. He made a decided hit in Boston on his first appearance. (Lyceum 1873, 3)
Andrews was born in Texas but moved to New York at an early age, where in 1860 and 1861 he worked as an actor at Niblo’s Garden. During the Civil War he served on the staff of General Ambrose Burnside, and at its conclusion he returned to the stage, successfully enacting both tragic and comic roles. He also served as the deputy collector of internal revenue for Brooklyn, was twice elected a New York State assemblyman (in 1868 and 1881), and in later years became an influential politician (Boston Evening Transcript: “Lectures,” 14 Oct 72, 2; “Dialect Humor,” 15 Oct 72, 4; Elderkin, 21–22; Lyceum: 1872, 2; 1873, 3; “William S. Andrews Dies,” New York Times, 30 Dec 1912, 7; Harlow and Hutchins, 170–73).
In his now-lost letter Redpath may have mentioned author and journalist Charles Frederick Briggs (1804–77), although no evidence has been found that he ever appeared on the platform. Briggs published his first novel, The Adventures of Harry Franco, in 1839. He edited Putnam’s Magazine for two separate stints, wrote for the New York Times, contributed “witty pieces” to Knickerbocker Magazine, and from 1870 to 1873 worked as financial editor on the Brooklyn Union (Blair and Hill, 177).
Redpath had forwarded a letter written to the Boston Lyceum Bureau by Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw), a popular humorist and homespun philosopher whom Clemens had known since at least November 1869 ( L3 , 397 n. 3). In the 9 November issue of Fun Hood commented on the American preference for humorous lectures, noting that “the article is not always to be got,” and then quoted the following passage from Billings’s letter: “Who is the coming man among the humorists? There is no one I know of who has yet begun to make a reputation for the business. The publick will find out that good phools are skase” (Hood 1872).
See 11 Sept 72 to OLC, nn. 4, 5click to open letter. The chairman has not been identified.
Clemens did not deliver this lecture in London until December 1873.
Stanley arranged with a New York agent, Frederick Rullman, to lecture sixty times for $30,000 during the 1872–73 season in the United States, with an option for an additional forty at the same price ($500 each), if Rullman so desired; the total for one hundred appearances would have been $50,000. Stanley performed so poorly, however, at his first two lectures in New York, on 3 and 4 December, that Rullman canceled the last two because he did “not find the enterprise remunerative” (New York Tribune: “Lectures and Meetings,” 7 Dec 72, 8; “Amusements,” 3 Dec 72, 10, and 4 Dec 72, 7). Although most of the tour was evidently called off, Stanley lectured occasionally over the next few months—appearing in Boston, for example, on 16 and 18 December, and in Washington on 13 January. Many years later he lectured more successfully in the United States, briefly in 1886 (when Clemens introduced him in Hartford and Boston), and at greater length during the 1890–91 season (Farwell, 91–92; H. Wilson 1872, 1042; “Amusements,” Boston Evening Transcript, 13 Dec 72 and 17 Dec 72, 3; “Personal,” Hartford Courant, 3 Dec 72, 2; Pond, 263–80).
Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa (1836–74), an English operatic soprano.
Tickets for Clemens’s lectures during the 1871–72 season cost fifty cents, or occasionally seventy-five cents for reserved seats. He usually received from $100 to $150 per lecture (occasionally as much as $250), well below the amount paid to the most popular performers ( L4 , 398–402).
Clemens could not have heard the “early news” about Harte’s winter lecture tour, which Redpath’s bureau was arranging, until he returned home in late November, and it must have been a surprise when he did. Harte and Redpath had ended their business relationship, suddenly and very publicly, on Wednesday, 13 November, when Harte, having canceled his first scheduled lecture on 12 November in Hartford, also declined to appear the next evening in Boston. The Hartford Evening Post reported the Hartford cancellation on the day he was scheduled to appear, noting that “a private letter from Mr. F. Bret Harte, poet and author, received in this city last evening announced that, ‘owing to the pressure of literary engagements’ he should not be able to lecture in Hartford this evening as announced” (“Postponement of Bret Harte’s Lecture,” 12 Nov 72, 2). The Boston cancellation had louder repercussions. According to the Boston Globe,
The name and fame of Mr. Francis Bret Harte were not such as to collect a very large audience in Music Hall last evening, and those who assembled to listen to such remarks as the man who was once pronounced the “representative American novelist” might be inspired to make on “The Argonauts of ’49” were disappointed, for, to use the words of Mr. Redpath, in his spicy little speech of apology, “for the third time the Heathen Chinee insulted a Boston audience.” “The first time,” said Mr. Redpath, “was at Cambridge, when he promised to deliver a first-rate poem, and read a second-rate one; the second time was when he promised to read to the Grand Army of the Republic, and sent a third-rate poem; and the third time is this evening, when he does not come at all. His engagement with us was made last June for the thirty-first of October, a date afterwards changed at his request. On Saturday, he telegraphed to us, asking that his lecture here and at Hartford should be either postponed or cancelled. We wrote to him immediately, telling him that his lecture could not be postponed, and requesting him to telegraph to us forthwith. This he did not do, but yesterday we received a letter saying that his lecture must be either postponed or cancelled as he could not come, and immediately cancelled his engagement. It is our rule, whenever we are compelled to disappoint our ticket-holders, to substitute a better lecturer than the one whose name we withdraw, and, in accordance with this custom, I invite your attention this evening to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.” (“Bret Harte as a Breaker of Engagements,” Hartford Evening Post, 15 Nov 72, 2, reprinting the Boston Globe of 14 Nov 72)
Holmes did lecture that evening in Harte’s place, and Redpath managed to announce the last minute change in at least one Boston paper (“Boston Lyceum. Special Announcement!” Boston Evening Transcript, 13 Nov 72, 2). On 15 November the editorial page of the New York Tribune rushed to defend Harte against Redpath’s unusual public wrath, asserting that he had “been unavoidably prevented from delivering his lecture at Boston on Wednesday night last” (4). That assertion, and the explanation Harte offered to Hartford (“the pressure of literary engagements”), do not entirely square with the fuller explanation Harte sent on 16 November to the Boston Advertiser (one of the newspapers that had published Redpath’s angry “remarks”):
For the last two years Messrs. Redpath and Fall of the Lyceum Bureau have repeatedly solicited me to enter the lecture field under their auspices. I finally acceded, and in August last in an interview with Mr. Redpath stated very clearly the conditions, and the only conditions, under which I would lecture. On the first of November I received from them a list of engagements whose conditions were totally at variance with those I had named. I at once informed them by letter that I would not accept them, and reiterated my former demand. To this I received no reply, but on the 9th of November, four days before the date of my Boston engagement, not wishing to disappoint a gathered audience pending these purely private and personal negotiations, I telegraphed to Messrs. Redpath and Fall that they must postpone that date. They replied by telegraph the same day that it was impossible, adding that Hartford (my first engagement) would accept my conditions. I at once wrote to them that until all my engagements were made equally satisfactory, they must postpone or cancel both, and that I would not permit Hartford to be forced, at the last moment, into accepting conditions of which they had not been previously aware. To this I added that the Boston fire, then burning, was a sufficient excuse for postponement—an excuse that afterward in the case of two distinguished lecturers was considered valid and not particularly “insulting” to a Boston audience.
With a perfect understanding of these details, and with my letter in his pocket, Mr. James Redpath rose before an audience which he had permitted to gather to hear a man who he knew would be absent, charged me with insulting them, depreciated the wares he had asked permission to peddle exclusively—all in the most extraordinary performance, I trust, ever given before a New England lyceum.
I have only to add that it is still my intention to lecture before a Boston audience, but not for Mr. Redpath, nor of him. (Harte 1872)
Harte’s letter was published on 20 November (2). Two days later, Redpath replied to it, also in the Advertiser. He repeated the assertion that it was in June that Harte first wrote to him offering to lecture in Boston “on the 30th of October if we agreed to his terms, which we promptly did accept.” Harte in turn accepted that date “on the first of July” (Redpath 1872). Harte had still not agreed to a lecture tour, but by August his reluctance was apparently overcome by the need for cash, and he met (as he said) with Redpath to spell out terms. On 1 September Redpath agreed to postpone Harte’s Boston engagement until 13 November, presumably with the same terms Harte had earlier proposed. Redpath did not accept Harte’s bargaining over the terms of his lecture tour as grounds for failing to appear, as previously agreed, in Boston:
We received no notification whatever from him of his intention not to lecture in Boston until the Saturday preceding the lecture—before the fire. It was in these words: “N. Y., Nov. 9, Redpath and Fall: Must postpone Boston lecture on 13th. Bret Harte.” Just so much and nothing more. Not a syllable of explanation. Although we telegraphed at once, and, in a letter sent by that evening’s mail, urged him to telegraph us on Monday if he could not keep the engagement, we received not a word from him until Tuesday, when he not only refused to appear, but made—or seemed to make—his intention of lecturing in Boston at all conditional on the readjustment of fees in western Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Moreover, the letter showed that his lecture had never been written. (Redpath 1872)
This bruising quarrel—which was noticed, commented on, and partly reprinted in newspapers around the country—led Redpath to bring suit against Harte, who ultimately agreed, in October 1875, to pay him $205 in compensation (Harte to James R. Osgood, 6 Oct 75, ViU, in Harte 1997). Harte nonetheless persisted in his plans to lecture during the winter, in many cases making “new and distinct agreements and engagements with each of the Lyceums that Redpath & Fall had treated with previously as my agents,” as he reminded George Fall on 29 November 1873 (CU-BANC, in Harte 1997). He appeared in Boston, sponsored by the American Lecture Bureau (possibly the same as the American Literary Bureau), on 13 December 1872, exactly one month after his canceled engagement. Upon arrival he was nearly imprisoned for failing to pay a tailor’s bill. John S. Clark, of Osgood and Company, was Harte’s host in Boston and “gave his individual note on demand to liquidate the bill and release the prisoner” (“An Embarrassing Predicament,” New York Evening Express, 19 Dec 72, 1, reprinting the Boston Saturday Evening Gazette of 14 Dec 72; “Lecture,” Boston Evening Transcript, 13 Dec 72, 2; 22 Mar 73 to Larned, nn. 2, 3click to open letter).
No copy-text. The text is based on two transcriptions, each of which derives independently from the MS:
P1, an unidentified typescript in the Litchfield Historical Society (CtLHi), contains the entire text of the letter and is the only source that records the docket of the Boston Lyceum Bureau (209.9). Although nothing is known about the origin of P1, it appears to be relatively modern and it is clear that it was based on the MS. P2 omits several passages but is the only source for ‘Langham Hotel’ (208.1). Five other partial texts, listed below under Previous publication, may derive independently from the MS, but contain no persuasively authorial variants. The three catalogs describe the MS as consisting of four pages, and the Anderson and Swann catalogs mention that it was written in pencil.
L5 , 204–212; Bangs 1901, lot 118 (misdated 1871); Anderson Auction Company 1909, lot 303; MTB , 1:473; Paine 1912, 107; and Swann, lot 234; all excerpts.
The MS may have been owned (or merely borrowed) by Will Clemens before he published it in 1900. It was sold by an unnamed consignor in 1901, and in November 1909 was again offered for sale as part of the collection of Frank Maier, by which time it was laid in a first edition copy of Roughing It (American Publishing Company, 1872). By 1977 the MS was part of the K. Benjamin DeForest Curtiss Collection of Watertown Library (Watertown, Conn.), which sold it in that year—still in the copy of Roughing It—through Swann Galleries. The unidentified typescript was also in the Curtiss Collection, before it went to Litchfield.
Handwritten changes on P1 deemed to be simple corrections of typing errors or omissions are not reported, but the handwritten deletions of typed underscores at 208.19, 208.20, and 208.21 are reported because they may in some way reflect the appearance of the missing MS.