Sunday.
Friend Bliss:
It is going to rush you too tight to do your canvassing & issue “Tom” the middle of April, isn’t it? If so, you better clap on your canvassers at once but not publish till the middle of May. In Drop me a line about this at once—for if we don’t issue in April I must telegraph Howells to delay the Atlantic notice a month.1
Yrs
Clemens
[letter docketed:] Saml Clemens | Mch 19 ″76
Explanatory Notes
Bliss’s reply is now lost, but he must have agreed to Clemens’s proposal. No telegram informing Howells
has been found. Clemens may have realized that none was necessary since the April Atlantic Monthly had already
issued and Howells was only now writing his review (see 13 Mar 1876 to
Howells, n. 5) . As late as 9 April Clemens believed that Tom Sawyer
would issue by the middle of May. By 16 April, however, he had decided to postpone publication until autumn, creating an
embarrassment for Howells, whose review was just then appearing in the Atlantic for May. Clemens
apologized to Howells in a letter of 26 April. The American Publishing
Company edition of Tom Sawyer did not finally issue until December (3 Apr 1876 to Howells; 9 Apr 1876 to
Conway; 16 Apr 1876 to Conway; TS,
22–25).
Source text(s):Previous publication:
MTLP, 95.
Provenance:
The Morse Collection was donated to CtY-BR in 1942 by Walter F. Frear.
