5. I want to talk at least 12 times in [good sized] towns before I talk in a city—so as to get the hang of my lecture perfectly, you know.
Click to add citation to My Citations.
Elmira, June 10.
Dear Redpath & Fall:
Without really intending to go into the lecture field, I wrote a lecture yesterday just for amusement & to see how the subject1 would work up—but now that I have read it over I like it so much that I want to deliver it.
I want to impose a few stipulations if they strike you favorably & you’ll stand them:
1. In whatever town I talk, I want the best price that that town has ever paid Nasby—except it be a place thrown in here & there for the purpose of shortening travel between places. [in margin: Nasby will tell give you transcript of his terms in the various places.] 2
2. I want to stick to main railroad lines as a rule, avoiding out-of-the way branches as much far as practicable.
3. I don’t want to make any steamboat trips, or any stage or carriage trips of even 2½ miles—2 miles is too much. To simplify it, I don’t want any engagements off the railroads.
4. I don’t want to lecture a single rod west of
St. Louis in Missouri or Davenport Iowa.—nor south of
Washington, D.C.3
[
‸
over.
]
I would much rather talk for Pugh in Phila.,
& for the Correspondents’ Club in
Washington—think it well to talk for the latter at half price, making them understand that feature. Good
card.‸
4
{{
6. If I am to talk in Brooklyn or New York, I ‸much‸ prefer that they should be the very last on the list.5
7. I am a bully good card in Philadelphia, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, & Detroit, & I want them to pay high prices.6 ‸In Newark I would much prefer to talk for my same old society—the Clayonians—good boys.‸ 7
8.
8. Rondout, N. Y., is hard to get at & Trenton N. J., not agreeable—crowd both out with high prices.8
9. I think that out of New England I ought never to talk for less than $125, because I thereby escape one-horse towns, candle-lighted halls, & execrable [hotels]—thought exceptions in order to put places close together are proper of course.9 What y do you think. ‸What does Nasby do?‸ Answer.
{
10. Is it well to go all over the country?—or would it be better to talk only in New England two of the months, & then put in the other two in the west, making Chicago the centre of operations & Cleveland & St. Louis the [extremes] of the circumference—& wholly leaving out Pitts New York, Philadelphia, Washington & everything, & simply bridging from New England to Cleveland by simply slamming in Elmira & Buffalo, or Pittsburgh. {Mem.—I want a big price in Buffalo if I talk there, which I ain’t particular whether I talk there or not.}10
Now by jings I like this latter idea of a 2-months N. England & a 2‐months western campaign—don’t it strike you pleasantly? [in margin: If you did do this, you will need to specify the [eastern & ]western months & so advertise, won’t you?]
11. It would [ so suit] me entirely, though, to put Philadelphia along with Brooklyn & New York & make them my very last lectures, though I traveled 500 miles to get there——but always remember I don’t care 2 cents about talking in either place. I love Philadelphia, but I don’t know anything about the other two places.
12. Give me all the appointments in New England that you can—{I wish it could occu fill up all the 3½ months ‸you hear me—‸}—I say 3½ because I don’t suppose any courses open before middle of October.
13. Give me the very shortest trips you can, & Heaven will bless you. ‸{Three hours is a healthy stretch—six is FRIGHTFUL.[}] ‸
14. Say—if you are posted
14.—Say—can’t you, when making an appointment get the Society to name their best hotel, & then put it in my list, as Fall did several times before? Splendid thing.11
15.—Can’t you get somebody to answer this letter in detail, please?
16.—Can’t you file this letter away where Fall can refer to it when in doubt about particulars?
17. Is the form I enclose about the thing you want for announcement? Alter it to suit yourself—add to it—take from it—fix it the ‸way you‸ want it to read.12
Yrs Ever
Samℓ. L. Clemens.
Write me frankly about everything—I want all your views. Tell me of my errors.
P. S.—Say—why don’t you ‸or Pugh‸ rent a popular hall in N. Y., & select the pick & choice of the lecturers ‸(say 5,)‸ & lecture each of them 5 to 10 nights in succession & just divide the actual profits with each after all [expenses.?] Fifty ni successive nights could be put in, in that way, & you would clear $20,000 or $25,000. Don’t you believe it? I do.
[letter docketed by Redpath:] answered in part 
[and] boston lyceum bureau. redpath & fall.
jun 12 1871
[and, in another hand:] 6/23.7113
[and] Twain Mark | Elmira, N.Y. | June 10
’71
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Click to add citation to My Citations. 2
Nasby’s lecture fee, as much as $400 in large
cities, had averaged $200 per engagement in 1870. Fees may
well have been discussed when Nasby called on Clemens in Buffalo on 21
February 1871. Clemens was then already contemplating a new tour. As
Nasby’s agent, Redpath was, of course, fully apprised of his
fees (22 Feb 71, 15 Mar 71, both to Redpath;
“Personal,” Hartford Courant, 18 Feb 70, 2; Harrison, 183; Lyceum:
1870, 3; 1871, 19).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 3
During his 1868–69 lecture tour, which included Illinois and
Iowa, Clemens had lectured as far west as Iowa City, about fifty miles
west of Davenport. His 1869–70 tour was limited to the
northeastern states. In neither tour had he ventured farther south than
Washington, D.C., or into Missouri at all (L3, 481–86). See 22 Jan 71 to Redpath for
an account of Clemens’s lecture tours in California and
Nevada.
Click to add citation to My Citations. 4
Thomas B. Pugh, the Philadelphia lecture impresario, paid Clemens
$250 for a 20 November 1871 lecture in his Star Course, a fee
he received only one other time that season, in Boston, on 1 November
(Redpath and Fall
1871–72, 3–6). Clemens was a favorite at
the Washington Newspaper Correspondents’ Club, which he had
probably joined in late 1867. After delivering his widely reprinted
reply to the toast to “Woman” on 11 January 1868
at a club banquet, he had promised to return with a formal lecture, but
had not yet done so. During his 1871–72 tour, however, his
Washington lecture was in the Grand Army of the Republic Course on 23
October, at an undiscounted fee of $150. He had previously
spoken in that course on 8 December 1869 (18 Apr 71 to
Unidentified; 28 June 71 to Redpath; SLC’s
receipt to Grand Army of the Republic, dated 23 Oct 71, ViU).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 5
Clemens lectured in Brooklyn on 21 November 1871, in the middle of his
tour, and in New York on 24 January 1872, toward the end (see Lecture Schedule,
1871–1872
for his full schedule).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 6
Newark and Pittsburgh paid Clemens $200; his usual fee was
$125 or $150. He was not booked into Cleveland or
Detroit (Redpath and Fall 1871–72,
5–6, 11–12).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 7
Clemens had lectured successfully for the Clayonians before what he
called “a great audience” at the Newark Opera
House on 9 December 1868 and again, less successfully, on 29 December
1869 (L2, 320–21, 323–24 n. 4; “Mark
Twain Last Night,” Newark Advertiser,
30 Dec 69, 2; “Mark Twain on the Sandwich
Islands,” Newark Journal, 30 Dec 69,
2).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 8
There was no direct train route to Rondout, over ninety miles north of
New York City and across the Hudson River. Clemens had lectured there on
2 December 1868 and 12 January 1870 and would do so again in 1871. In
Trenton he had lectured twice in 1869, delivering “The
American Vandal Abroad” on 23 February and “Our
Fellow Savages of the Sandwich Islands” on 28 December. The
Trenton press evidently did not review the first lecture. The Trenton
True American had called the second
“one of the grandest humbugs of the day. However a man, and a
printer at that, can have the cheek to go about the country retailing
anecdotes as stale as some sausages, at $150 a night, is more
than we can understand” (“An extended . . .
,” 29 Dec 69, 3, in Lane). Actually, Clemens had received
only $100 for his 28 December appearance. For his objection
to Trenton, see 28 June 71 to Redpath. He did not lecture
there during his 1871–72 tour (28 June 71 to Redpath;
20 July 71
to Fall; L2, 298, 300 n. 5; L3, 442 n. 1, 483, 485–86).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 9
Redpath eventually made engagements in several New England towns at lower
fees: $100 for Brattleboro (Vermont), Milford, Andover,
Malden, and Randolph (Massachusetts); and $110 for Great
Barrington (Massachusetts), Exeter (New Hampshire), and Bennington
(Vermont) (Redpath and Fall 1871–72,
1–6).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 11
Clemens’s lecture itinerary did identify hotels in most
cities, presumably those recommended by the local lyceum societies
(Redpath and Fall
1871–72).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 12
The enclosure does not survive, but clearly was the draft of a publicity
release about the new lecture—“An Appeal in behalf
of Extending the Suffrage to Boys.” See the next letter and
21 June 71
to Bliss for other, presumably similar announcements.
Click to add citation to My Citations. 13
Redpath’s fist pointed to the earlier, stamped date.
Neither his 12 June nor his 23 June reply is known to survive.
Source text(s):MS, New York Historical Society, New York (NHi).
Previous publication:
L4, 398–402.
Emendations and textual notes:
over • [simulated small capitals underscored twice]
good sized • [possibly ‘good-sized’; blotted]
hotels • hotellss
extremes • extremesss
eastern & •
easte[rn 
]
[pasted
over]
so suit • souit
expenses. • [deletion implied]
