Clemens wrote on Saturday. His “hurry” seems to have been prompted, at least in part, by his plan to leave for Elmira (by way of New York City), which he did on Thursday, 8 May—the same day he and Warner finally met with Bliss to sign the contract for The Gilded Age. Bliss agreed to a 10 percent royalty (5 percent to each author) on the retail price of every book sold (see Contract for the American Publishing Company Gilded Age click to open letter and 16 July 73 to Bliss, n. 2click to open letter). London publisher George Routledge was also in Hartford that day and may have joined them to discuss arrangements for the English edition. The manuscript itself was probably not delivered to Bliss until late May, after Warner had revised it (“Brief Mention,” Hartford Courant, 8 May 73, 2; 12 May 73 to Redpath, n. 1click to open letter; 16 July 73 to Blissclick to open letter). Isaac E. Sheldon’s prediction of failure in publishing “a novel by subscription” was merely the received wisdom at this time, both among trade and subscription publishers. When Bliss issued The Gilded Age in December 1873, it became the first novel published by subscription. In April 1871 Clemens had proposed writing “quite a respectable novel” for publication by Sheldon, who had been encouraging: “I like the idea & it would sell well if it were a good story & had a quiet vein of humor as well as the tragic interest of a story. I do not see why you could not write such a story” ( L4 , 375, 376 n. 1). The “story” in question was probably a version of The Gilded Age, which Clemens then thought of writing with Joseph T. Goodman. The present letter shows that he must have talked with Sheldon again, this time about the novel he and Warner had actually written. Bliss was predisposed to regard Sheldon as a rival, having objected to his publication, in March 1871, of Mark Twain’s (Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance (SLC 1871) as a violation of his own exclusive contract with Clemens (see L4 , 320–21 n. 1). That rivalry may have influenced his decision to agree to the 10 percent royalty. In general, subscription publishers paid authors far more than did trade publishers, as Warner implicitly acknowledged on 19 April when he informed James R. Osgood of his own, presumably temporary, defection from the retail trade: “Mark Twain and I have been writing a novel the last two months, but it will have to go into the subscription trade here, and we hope that our high art will be rewarded with several dollars” (CtHMTH; see also Hill 1964, 6–13, 71).

On 3 May 1871 Clemens had urged Bliss to consider publishing a book that Edward H. House was writing about Japan. Bliss was interested, but the project was not pursued until House evidently revived it during his recent visit to Clemens, in late April. Despite Clemens’s suggestion here, by late 1873 Bliss had reached an agreement with House, who wrote him from Japan on 25 November that the “MSS. progresses with reasonable rapidity, and as there seems to be ample time, I am seeing through a new series of observations, in order to make it additionally accurate and complete” (ViU). Ultimately, however, the American Publishing Company did not publish House’s book (see L4 , 388, 389 n. 1; 25 and 26 Apr 73 to OLC, n. 8click to open letter).