To John Henry Riley
27 March 1872 • Elmira, N.Y.
(MS: ViU, UCCL 00740)

Elmira, Mch. 27

Friend Riley—

I don’t really know what the phonographer’s work is going to be worth. Your story ought to make some 3,000 pages of MSS when he has written it up in full from his shorthand notes—that is to say, 3,000 folios of a hundred words each. It may make a good deal more, & can’t well make less. I want to pay him by the day while taking the notes; & by the folio while copying them. I will pay him $3 a day & board & lodge him, while he is taking the notes; or, $5 a day & he board & lodge himself—which latter I prefer.

To copy the notes (which he can do after her returns home as well as he could do it here,) is worth anywhere from 5 to 10 cents a folio (from $150 to $300 for the copying, altogether). About 70 folios a day is a fair average day’s [work.,] in copying.

I should wanted it stipulated that the copying should be done & the MSS put into my hands within a given time.

Recapit:

$3 or $5 a day while taking notes; [ 5 to n ] Not less than 5 nor more than 10 cents a folio for [ copying . ] them.

How’s that? Can you try for a bargain on those figures & let me know if you fail?

We want a good, appreciative [listener—] find a reporter who is that. Get your man to take down a yarn for you & see if he knows enough to enjoy your good points. It is really ‸much‸ more important than perfect reporting—though we don’t want the latter to be much short of perfect.

If you find your Washington man won’t do, try Philada.

If a reporter don’t like the terms I offer, get him to make a proposition. I am making large & necessary outlays, now, & am must get things ciphered down as cheaply as possible.

Telegraph me, when you start, & I will receive you.1

Ys

Mark.

Preserve this letter for me—have kept no copy—as it relates to business it ought not to be destroyed.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

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1 These arrangements for the South African diamond mine book were probably not carried far, for within a few weeks Riley was known to be critically ill (15 May 72 to Bliss).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

Clifton Waller Barrett Library, Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville (ViU).

Previous publication: L5, 71–72.

Provenance:deposited at ViU by Clifton Waller Barrett on 16 January 1963.

Emendations and textual notes:

work., • [deletion implied]

5 to n • [‘n’ partly formed]

copying . • [possibly ‘copying;’]

listener— • listener— |—