From Olivia L. and Samuel L. Clemens to Annie E. Moffett
17 May 1872 • Elmira, N.Y.
(MS: NPV, UCCL 00750)

Elmira May 17th 1872

Dear Annie

I send you by express today black silk to make an underskirt and lining for your grenadine. I was afraid that you might not find what would suit you in Fredonia—

If you should not have goods enough send to Mollie Fairbanks a sample of the goods and she will get you more.1 I know that it takes an immense amount of cloth to trim dresses as they trim them nowadays and I have been afraid since I came home that I ought to have bought 30 yards—

The babies are both of them wpretty quite well, Susie is a healthy little thing and Langdon is as well as his teeth will let ‸him‸ be

All I made out of the Innocents Abroad was $25,000, & I sunk it in the Buffalo Express—& meantime I have made $25,000 lecturing & in other miscellaneous work—& that I have spent—at least a good deal of it. So far, I have only received $10,500 out of the new book. I have about $30,000 in bank, & Livy about the same. So you see we are not nearly so rich as the papers think we are.2

The new nurse has gone come, & [ Livy ] Margaret is gone.3 All, well,

Lovingly—

Sam.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Livy had apparently made her purchases in Cleveland.

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2 This defensive statement was elicited by an item that the Moffett family had presumably seen in the newspaper and asked about: “Mark Twain made $150,000 by his ‘Innocents Abroad,’ and expects $200,000 from ‘Roughing It.’ What innocent would’t wander for $150,000, and who would’t rough it for $200,000?” (Fredonia Censor, 15 May 72, 3). This item, which probably derived from a longer version published in the Buffalo Courier of 10 May (“Personal,” 1), was widely circulated by the newspaper exchanges. Clemens issued a corrective in the Hartford Courant:

Petroleum V. Nasby, it is said, makes forty-four thousand dollars per annum by lecturing and by his notable letters. Mark Twain made one hundred and fifty thousand dollars by his “Innocents Abroad,” and expects two hundred thousand dollars for “Roughing It.” It is well worth while to be verdant and to have been rough at those figures.—Exchange.

This is a fair sample of the absurd items that go the rounds at regular intervals. To make $44,000, Nasby would have to lecture nearly three hundred nights in the year, and receive $150, over and above all expenses, for every lecture. He probably does not make $10,000 in a year, by lectures. Mark Twain has received, to date, a little over $22,000 for “Innocents Abroad,” and is likely to receive very nearly the same sum for the first six months of “Roughing It,” which is not very rough on Mark, but a long way short of the figures in the item quoted. (“Nasby and Twain,” 6 June 72, 2)

Clemens chose not to mention to the Moffetts the money Olivia had inherited from her father, which was tied up in a variety of investments; as of September 1873 her assets would total over $237,000 (“In Memoriam,” Elmira Saturday Evening Review, 13 Aug 70, 5; Charles J. Langdon to OLC, 3 Sept 73, CU-MARK).

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3 Margaret’s replacement was probably the nursemaid, Ellen (Nellie) Bermingham, who would accompany the Clemenses to New Saybrook, Connecticut, in July.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV).

Previous publication: L5, 92–93.

Provenance:see McKinney Family Papers in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

Livy • [‘y’ partly formed]