To Elisha Bliss, Jr.
3 May 1871 • Elmira, N.Y.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00610)

Elmira, May 3.

Friend Bliss:

My friend Ned House, of the N. Y. Tribune, is in Japan, & is writing a book that will read bully & sell ditto. If you His idea of illustrating it profusely with quaint Japanese wood cuts made by native artists is a splendid feature. If you want his book, let me know what royalty, &c, you will pay, & I will write him. Or would your If your own hands should be full you might publish it through your brother’s house. I enclose the letter he wrote the to David Gray & me on the subject.1

My book is half done. I mailed you the 12th, 13th, 14th & 15th chapters yesterday, & before that I had sent you the previous 11 chapters. Let me know if they all arrived safely.2

This book will be pretty readable, after all; & if it is well & profusely illustrated it will crowd the “Innocents.”

Ys

Clemens.

[letter docketed:] [and] Mark Twain | May 3/71 | Author [and] Sam’l Clemens | For Year 1871

Explanatory Notes

Editorial Signs

Click to add citation to My Citations.

1 Edward H. House’s letter does not survive. Bliss responded enthusiastically to his proposal, first in a letter (now lost), which Clemens received by 15 May, and again in a postscript to his letter of 17 May (15 May to Bliss, n. 7). Although Bliss apparently reached an agreement with House two years later, the book was not published by the American Publishing Company or any of its subsidiaries, including the Richard W. Bliss Company (3 May 73 to Bliss, transcript at WU; House to Bliss, 25 Nov 73, ViU). House eventually published Japanese Episodes (1881), a book of Japanese travel, with James R. Osgood and Company of Boston, and Yone Santo: A Child of Japan (1888), an illustrated novel, with Belford, Clarke and Company of Chicago (Geer 1871, 226). See also 9 June 70 to Bliss, n. 3.

Click to add citation to My Citations.

2 See 30 Apr 71 to OC, n. 2.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).

Previous publication: L4, 388–389; MTLP, 65–66.

Provenance:see Mendoza Collection in Description of Provenance