Oct. 5.1
Friend Bliss:
You may let Williams have all of Tom Sawyer that you have received. He can of course make the pictures all the more understandingly after reading the whole story. He wants it, & I have not the least objection, because if he should lose any of it I have got another complete MS. copy.2
I think you had better rush Dan’s book into print, by New Year’s, if possible, & give Tom Sawyer the early spring market. I don’t want to publish in the summer—don’t want to wait till fall—shall have a bigger book ready then.3
What have you heard from England in the way of a proposition for Tom Sawyer? I have an offer from the Routledges (which I haven’t answered), & if you have heard nothing from over there, I propose to write the “Temple Bar” people. Drop me a line about this, will you?4
Frank said he would send the infernal Type-Writer to Howells. I hope he won’t forget to afflict Howells with it.5
I wish you would send me a couple of copies of the Sketch Book, & also all the Sketches that were left out in making it up. I do not want to lose them.6
Didn’t you make that correction of the paragraph smouched from “Hospital Days?” Twichell has an uncorrected copy.7
Yrs
Clemens.
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[letter docketed in pencil:]
[and in ink:] Sam’l Clemens | Nov. 5 ″75 | Sam’l
Clemens | For Year 1875
Explanatory Notes
$355.86
Hartford Nov. 10 1875.
Received of Mr. J. L. Blamire (‸agent‸ for Messrs. George Routledge & Sons) $355.86, currency, being the remainder of royalties due me on Gilded Age up to June 30, 1875.
Samℓ. L. Clemens
(Routledge Agreement Book A–K, 186, Routledge, in Grenander 1975, 3)
That early Boston machine was full of caprices, full of defects—devilish ones. It had as many immoralities as the machine of to-day has virtues. After a month or two I found that it was degrading my character, so I thought I would give it to Howells. He was reluctant, for he was suspicious of novelties and unfriendly towards them, and he remains so to this day. But I persuaded him. He had great confidence in me, and I got him to believe things about the machine that I did not believe myself. He took it home to Boston, and my morals began to improve, but his have never recovered.
He kept it three months, and then returned it to me. I gave it away twice after that, but it wouldn’t stay; it came back. Then I gave it to our coachman, Patrick McAleer, who was very grateful, because he did not know the animal, and thought I was trying to make him wiser and better. As soon as he got wiser and better he traded it to a heretic for a side-saddle which he could not use, and there my knowledge of its history ends. (AD, 27 Feb 1907, CU-MARK)
ERRATUM.
By an error of the publishers the above sketch “From ‘Hospital Days’” was inserted in this book. It should not have been, as Mark Twain is not the author of it. It will not appear in any future edition.
After I have read it, I will give you the benefit of my valuable judgement upon it, at present I think that the short piece “from hospital days” is the best thing it contains, and am so sorry that the publishers will commit the error of leaving it out next time.
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Previous publication:
L6, 585–587; Brownell 1943, 2, with omissions; Parke-Bernet 1938, lot 126, excerpt; MTLP, 92–93.
Provenance:
see Mendoza Collection in Description of Provenance. The MS was sold to C. W.
Force in 1938 from the collection of George C. Smith, Jr. By October 1942 it
was owned by George H. Brownell. A Brownell TS of the letter is at WU (see
Brownell Collection in Description of Provenance).