To Elisha Bliss, Jr.
4 March 1873 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: ViU, UCCL 00881)

Hartfd, Mch. 4/73

Friend Bliss—

Statement rec’d for quarter ending Mch 1, & check for $1,656.69 for royalties on Innocents Abroad & Roughing It.

So Roughing It sells less than twice as many in a quarter as Innocents, a book which is getting gray with age.1 The fault is mainly in the engravings & paper, I think.2 —That, & the original lack of publicity. I believe I have learned, now, that if one don’t secure publicity & notoriety for a book the instant it is issued, no amount of hard work & faithful advertising can accomplish it later on. When we look at what Roughing It sold in the first 3 & 6 months, we naturally argue that it would have sold from full 3 times as many if it had gotten the prompt & early journalistic boost & notoriety that the Innocents had.3

Recognizing the importance, now, of this early prompt notoriety (which I was afraid of & didn’t want until we were dead sure of 50,000 subscriptions to R. I.—but which I am not afraid of now,) I have conceived a plan which [ wh will] advertise the next book from Maine to the Marquesas ‸free of expense‸ before the proofsheets are all read. But I’ll fix that, myself.

Now Nast appears to be doing nothing in particular. I want him, solitary & alone, to illustrate [ the this] next book, it being an essentially American book, & he will enjoy doing it. Nast only has just one first-class talent ‸(caricature,)‸ & no more ‸(caricature)‸ —but this book will exercise that talent, I think. I think he will be glad to do this work below his usual terms. If you say so I will write him. Tell me what you think, & tell me about the total amount you think it best to put in the drawing of the illustrations.4

I wish you would say nothing about an a new book from me for the spring (or rather next fall) issue, because as soon as I can get some more stock at easy figures, I want it. I want to be a Director, also.5

Ys

Clemens.

How [many] copies have been sold of Innocents? And how many of R. I.? Get it from the official figures.6

[letter docketed:] [and] S. L. Clemens | Mar. 4/73

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 The American Publishing Company’s statement for 1 March is not known to survive. The bindery records, however, indicate that in the quarter ending on that date, 3,684 copies of Roughing It, but only 2,045 copies of The Innocents Abroad, were bound (APC, 109). The number of copies actually sold would have been slightly lower.

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2 See 7 Mar 72 to OC, n. 1.

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3 Clemens had been reluctant to send out review copies of Roughing It (19 Apr 72 to Bliss, n. 2). In contrast, when The Innocents Abroad was published in August 1869, Bliss had distributed “from 1 to 2,000 copies” to newspapers, and the book was widely—and favorably—reviewed (L3, 293 n. 1, 323 n. 1, 328 n. 1top; see 13 and 17 Jan 73 to Reid, n. 7).

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4 Thomas Nast did not contribute any drawings to The Gilded Age. Bliss hired several well-known but presumably less costly artists instead—although in at least one advertisement for the book he made the implausible claim that the illustrations cost nearly $10,000 (see 10? July 73 to Warner, n. 3; MTLP, 75 n. 2; RI 1993, 881–82).

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5 In January 1873 Clemens owned $5,000 of American Publishing Company stock, on which he received a 10 percent dividend for the preceding quarter. He sold the stock in 1881, having never received another dividend. No record has been found of an additional purchase. Clemens became a director of the company in 1873, and—except for 1878–79, when he was in Europe—retained the position until sometime in 1881 (Elisha Bliss, Jr., to SLC, 7 Jan 73, CU-MARK; Hill 1964, 124; Geer 1872–82).

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6 As of 1 March 1873, a total of 77,654 copies of Roughing It and 103,907 copies of The Innocents Abroad had been bound (APC, 106–7, 109).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

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

Previous publication: L5, 308–310; MTLP, 74–75.

Provenance:deposited at ViU by Clifton Waller Barrett on 17 December 1963.

Emendations and textual notes:

wh will • whill [‘h’ partly formed]

the this • theis