To Moncure D. Conway
1 August 1876 • Elmira, N.Y.
(MS facsimile: CU-MARK, UCCL 01354)
(SUPERSEDED)

Elmira, Aug. 1/76.

My Dear Conway:

Your last just received.1 I sent you the price of the pictures entirely too late for your first edition ‸(P. S.—No I didn’t either; I sent the price in April or May 1st)‸ 2—which was to be a cheap edition, as I understood it—but with ample time to let Chatto say he didn’t want them for his fall high-priced edition, if he should not like the cost. I suppose the first edition was already in press before I received the order to forward the electros—& it was printed before the plates started from here; so the first edition was evidently not waiting for them. If Chatto did not want the pictures, why did he put me to all that bother about them. I could have earned their cost a couple of times with the running I did on their account.

I got Bliss’s figures for the electros & forwarded them; ‸(25 cents per square inch, I think it was.)‸ I suppose, of course, Chatto ordered them upon that clear basis; he does not like their cost, now; who is to blame but himself? How am I to “do my best to favor him?” Bliss makes the plates—not me. It is no object to Bliss to favor Chatto; Bliss is in no wise concerned. If I ask Bliss to favor Chatto by reducing the contract price of the electros, what argument (not sentimental, but business commercial,) am I to offer him to that end? I am sure I know of none which he would not smile a godless smile at.

Now in order to accomplish anything in this matter, I would have to go to work & correspond with Bliss every three days for a couple of weeks, before a comfortable & satisfactory result could be reached. Life is too short. Manuscript is too valuable. Let Chatto ship the electros back to Bliss & Bliss shall use them himself if he can, & if he can’t he must charge them to me. This is the simplest way out of the tangle. You have already issued your high-priced edition—there is no money in another one.3

We are up here at the farm for the summer. You never have been here, I believe; therefore you don’t know what peace & comfort are; & you never can know till you come here one of these days & spend a week or so with us. Which I hope you will do, & bring Mrs. Conway. We are in the air, overhanging the valley 700 feet, & my study is 100 yards from the house. This is not my vacation, mind you—I take that in winter. I am booming along with my new book—have written ⅓ of it & shall finish it in 6 working weeks.4

Tom Sawyer proofs come in slowly; received & read Chapter 8 yesterday.

With warmest regards & best wishes—

Yrs Ever

Mark.

Mrs. Clemens says you do not need to be a prophet ‸prophet‸ [added and circled above, with a rule drawn to miswritten and canceled version] in order to convince her that she would “enjoy London” now

Explanatory Notes

Editorial Signs

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1 Moncure Conway’s “last,” sent around mid-July, does not survive, except for the words Clemens quoted in the second and the final paragraphs here, his enclosure in 8 Aug 76 to Bliss, and his brief paraphrase in the fourth paragraph of 14 Aug 76 to Eustace Conway. Conway’s response to the present letter also does not survive.

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2 The price went to Conway in Clemens’s letter of 16 April 1876. No letter of 1 May has been found.

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3 Chatto and Windus evidently did not publish an illlustrated edition of Tom Sawyer until 1885 (see 4 July 76 to Conway, n. 2).

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4 Clemens had begun writing Adventures of Huckleberry Finn around 9 July (see 9 Aug 76 to Howells). He stopped work on it twice, for extended periods, before finally finishing it in 1884 (for a full discussion of its composition and revision, see HF2003, 666–715).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Copy-text:

MS facsimile, CU-MARK.

Previous publication: MTLP, 102–4.

Provenance:A typed transcript in CU-MARK indicates that the MS was at one time in the Justin Turner Collection.