London, Dec. 13.
Livy darling, I am so tired of lecturing! I enjoy while I am on the stage, because the audience are such [elegant ]looking people & are so heartily responsible [responsive ](heaps of fine carriages & liveries come,) but I don’t take any interest in life during the day. I shall lecture only one week longer in London—closing Dec. 20—& then shall talk in 4 or 5 cities outside. I wish it would carry me home [sooner]. But that would not be fair to Dolby who long ago promised me to cities in January. I ought to keep on lecturing in London, but the fog nearly broke my heart, & on the foggiest night I lost faith & made Dolby [advertised ]the early close of my season. It was rash & wrong, but I could not help it.1 Day & night the streets were void of people; all day long the streets lamps burned, yet they only looked like rows of dull embers, half-dead sparks, extending up Portland Place—& you see them only half way up Portland Place, at that. There were but few cabs about. The steeple opposite the parlor window was visible only as a dreamy, unformed, spectral thing. My houses r fell right down till they contained only [ £12 £14 ]& £17! [It ]said “It is going to last forever & ever—cut my season short!” But no matter. I would rather loaf & l than lecture, any time.
Why don’t your letters come? It seems an age since I had one. I have been to[o] dreadfully busy to write you, often, but shall write oftener now.
I have been writing after-dinner speeches & a preface for the book. Read proof of the preface this evening. I state some plain facts in it,—so I have appended a postscript to say that Warner isn’t to blame, because he don’t know what I am [writing.2 The ]book is to be issued here at 25/ & a 2/ edition will be immediately shipped to Canada. The Routledges would not yield up Canada to Bliss—which is very well for Warmner & [ W ]me, because high-priced books don’t extend one’s reputation fast or far enough. I urge them to get out a cheap edition here just as soon as the libraries will consent.3
I have been getting up an elaborate speech to-day (expecting to be called upon, as usual,) to respond to some toast or other at the Lord Mayor’s dinner Tuesday night, after my lecture—I wrote him I could not come till 10 PM) purposely to wring in a word about International [Copyright]—but as it is at the end of the Speech I may conclude to cut it, at last.4
Preserve the en The present Lord Mayor is an old brick—an old ‸Scotch‸ brick—met him at the great St Andrews dinner.5
I love you, darling.
Samℓ.
[enclosure, on back as folded:] 6
Preserve all of the‸se‸ letters, Livy, in the green box, Samℓ.
14 Dec 1873
6, kent terrace, regent’s park. n. w.
My dear Sir,
I feel desirous to do something more helpful to your lecture than perhaps the article would be, 7 and I have therefore written, and inserted in the new number of Punch a strong incitation to the public to make haste & go and see you, & I have put in quotations to attract the eye of the B. P. 8 I will send you an early copy ‸tomorrow‸—it will appear on Wednesday & may do good for the brief time you mention it as your intention to remain. 9 I will also send you my Almanac—Tenniel has done something which I am certain you will admire. 10
Believe me
very sincerely yours
Shirley Brooks
S. L. Clemens Esq
Mrs. Samℓ. L. Clemens | Hartford | Conn [in upper left corner:] America. |
[rule]
[on flap:]
slc
[postmarked:] london • w 7 de 15 73
[and] [new york • dec 2
13 • u.s. notes]
[and] [insufficiently stamped]
[and] 13
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
The economics of Victorian book production, especially of fiction, was much influenced by the large lending libraries, and there
is no doubt either that they increased the reputations of many authors by widening the audience they reached. The best-known library
was of course Mudie’s, founded in 1842, and Mudie’s order alone for a single title could, if the author were
well-known, run into four figures. . . . The three-decker novels that they preferred were
expensive, and obviously it was not in the interest either of the publisher or of the libraries to jeopardise the circulation of
these or indeed of any library title by the premature issue of a cheap edition. (Welland, 43) (For a full discussion of the relationship between publishers and lending libraries, see Griest, 58–86.) Routledge printed 500 copies of the 25s. 6d. edition in December, and the following month printed 4,000 copies of a 2s. edition. No
further reprintings were required until 1877. Routledge retained his contractual right to the Canadian market, and apparently sold
his cheap edition there, with-holding it from the English market until June 1874 (Routledge Ledger Book 4:765, Routledge; Contract for the Routledge Gilded Age; “New
Works Published from June 1 to 15,” Publishers’ Circular 37 [16 June 74]:
391; “The Times Column of New Books and New Editions,” London Times, 9 June 74, 14;
French, 264, mistakenly states that the edition advertised in June 1874 cost 12s.).
Clemens may have considered enclosing this note in the present letter (see the cancellation in the next paragraph)
but refrained, since it would not easily fit in the envelope with the letter he evidently did enclose (see
note 6). No text of Clemens’s speech has been found, nor has his attendance at the dinner been confirmed.
“TWAIN CAN DO ’T.”
Antony and Cleopatra. Again we have, as Jacques Pierre observes in the Midsummer Night’s Dream, “Twain, at large discourse;” but, as the same eminent Frenchman says in the Winter’s Tale, ‘twill
be only a case of “Mark, a little while.” In fact, the distinguished humorist’s stay is to be so brief that if we were not now upon such
extraordinary sweet terms with America, we should write unpleasantly about such autoschediastic treatment of us. But for a few times
Mr. Mark Twain is to be visible to the naked eye,
(fog permitting) in Hanover Square, and because his visit is so short, Mr. Punch, who extracts something good
out of anything objectionable, performs the philanthropic act of hereby encouraging and inciting his friends to go and hear Mr. Twain’s new lecture. (Punch 65:248)
Illustration by John Tenniel in Punch’s Almanack for 1874
(6–7).
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L5, 512–17; LLMT, 364, brief paraphrase.
Provenance:see Samossoud Collection (letter) and Mark Twain Papers (enclosure) in Description of Provenance.
Emendations and textual notes:
elegant • ele | elegant [corrected miswriting]
responsive • responsivse
sooner • soomerner
advertised • [sic]
£12 £14 • £124
It • [sic]
writing. The • [possibly a paragraph break; ‘writing.’ written short of right margin at bottom of page and ‘The’ written at top of new page]
W • [partly formed; possibly ‘T’]
Copyright • Copy-|right
new york • dec 2 13 • u.s. notes
•
[ne]w york • d[e]c [] 13 •
[u]s. n[ote]s
[badly inked]
insufficiently stamped • insuf[f]iciently s[t]amped [badly inked]
