To Charles E. Perkins
24 or 25 August? 1875 • Newport, R.I.
(MS: CtHMTH, UCCL 01382)

. . . .

P. S. Hadn’t we better have a clause giving my agent the right to make copies of all of Raymond’s contracts, & have free access to the originals at all times? Raymond once, in a pet, refused to let Bergen see those contracts.1

Yrs

S L C.

[enclosure:] 2

new york hotel, 721 broadway. frank wrisley & co. proprietors.

new york187

New York

Aug 16 to Sept 25 or Oct 2d

Share after $2356 per week 3

Philadelphia

Oct 4″ Two weeks

Share after $285.71 Each performance

Cincinnati

Oct 18″ Two weeks

Share after 1500 per week

Louisville Nov 1st Five Nights

Share after $1500 per week less Saturday night—which time I have to take to reach Boston for

Nov 8″ Two weeks

Share after $3000 per week

Brooklyn

Nov 22d one week

Share after $1500 per week

Baltimore

Nov 29 two weeks

Share after $1500 per week

Washington

Dec 13″ Two weeks

Share after 1500 per week

Tour of five weeks through the South—

With Ford of Washington

60 per cent after 1800 per week

New Orleans

Jany 31 Two weeks

70 per cent after 250 per night ⅓ Wed matinée ½ Saturday Matinée

Memphis

Feb [17 14] Five Nights * 5

Chicago

Feb 21 Two weeks

25 per cent first Six hundred

50 ″ ″ above 600 up to 1000

75 over 1000

St Louis

March 6 Two weeks

Share after $1000 per week

Indianapolis

‸One week March 20—‸

Share after $1500

Ten weeks Tour through East and west commencing March 27

[inserted in a different hand:

With Abbey

60 per cent after 1800 per week Cleveland

June 5 one month

70 per cent after 1600 per week

California

June 26 Two weeks

Share after 450 per night ⅓ of Matinée

The above is Subject to alterations as agreed debts &c

John T. Raymond

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Clemens wrote this letter on a scrap of paper attached to the enclosed schedule from Raymond, which lists bookings of the Gilded Age play for the upcoming 1875–76 season. The dating of the letter is highly conjectural, and is based in part on the evidence of the schedule itself (see note 3). It is likely that Clemens received the schedule with the following letter (CtHMTH), which answered an unrecovered telegram he probably sent to his agent, H. W. Bergen, on 23 August:

UCLC32203

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Clemens presumably forwarded the schedule to Perkins, his lawyer, on 24 or 25 August. He then telegraphed Bergen, asking for copies of Raymond’s contracts with the theaters, and evidently made another request regarding money. Raymond answered these unrecovered telegrams (CU-MARK):

UCLC32205

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2 The figures on the schedule apparently represented expenses—firm, in the case of New York and Philadelphia, and round-figure estimates for the other cities. Clemens and Raymond were to divide the net proceeds from ticket sales, so it is not surprising that Clemens questioned such high expense figures. Doubtless they included supporting actors’ salaries and theater rental. In most cases Clemens’s “share” was one-half (the same as for the 1874–75 season), but where other percentages were specified (in Cleveland, for example), the larger portion was probably Raymond’s. This trend continued: during the 1877–78 season Raymond received two-thirds of the profits. Many, but not all, of the engagements have been confirmed. After his run in New York ended on 2 October (see the next note), Raymond appeared at Wood’s Theater, Cincinnati, during the weeks of 18 and 25 October; at the Globe Theatre, Boston, during the weeks of 8 and 15 November; at the Brooklyn Theatre during the week of 22 November; at the Varieties Theatre, New Orleans, during the weeks of 31 January and 7 February 1876; and at McVicker’s Theatre, Chicago, during the weeks of 21 and 28 February (Raymond to SLC, 25 Sept 76, CtHMTH; Odell, 10:20–21, 121; “Amusements,” Cincinnati Enquirer, 18 Oct 75, 30 Oct 75, 5; “Amusements,” Boston Globe, 8 Nov 75, 17 Nov 75, 1; “Colonel Sellers in Brooklyn,” New York Evening Post, 24 Nov 75, 3; “Amusements,” New Orleans Picayune, 1 Feb 76, 6 Feb 76, 1; “Amusements,” Chicago Tribune, 21 Feb 76, 28 Feb 76, 7).

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3 Raymond opened the Union Square Theatre’s “preliminary season” in New York on 16 August. When he wrote this letter, the length of his engagement was apparently not yet confirmed—he was to appear until at least 25 September (six weeks) and, if attendance remained high, for an additional week. The extension of the play (an “overwhelming success,” according to the advertisements) for a seventh week was not announced until 19 September. The “regular” season began on 4 October with Dion Boucicault’s Led Astray, in which Marie Gordon—Raymond’s wife—was to appear, instead of accompanying her husband on the road (New York Times: “Amusements,” 16 Aug 75, 7; 18 Sept 75, 9; 19 Sept 75, 11; New York Evening Post: “Music and the Drama,” 24 Sept 75, 4). Raymond expected his 1875–76 tour to be lucrative. On 2 November the Boston Globe reported:

Another pleasant story is told at the expense of Mr. John T. Raymond, the actor. At Cincinnati, last Friday, he was telling a party of friends about the great success of the “Gilded Age.” “The play made seventy-five thousand dollars last year,” said he; “this year I will make one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars out of it; then I’ll play it another year here; then I’ll go to Europe.” Here he was suddenly recalled, by the merriment of his friends, to the fact that he was acting the sanguine Colonel Sellers in earnest. (“Table Gossip,” 4)

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4 This inserted comment and the one at 527.5–8 may be in Bergen’s hand. John Thomson Ford (1829–94) had been the manager of the Holliday Street Theatre in Baltimore since 1854 and built the Grand Opera House there in 1871. He built three theaters in Washington, including Ford’s Theatre (which he owned at the time of Lincoln’s assassination there in 1865), and also managed a number of traveling companies.

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5 Neither this asterisk, nor the one below at 527.8, has been explained. This one might have been made by Raymond, but the asterisk below appears to be part of the insertion. Any notes they might have referred to have not survived.

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6 Henry Eugene Abbey (1846–96) was an impresario and theatrical manager who began his career in Akron, Ohio, and earned recognition for bringing high-quality entertainment to areas outside of large cities. He later managed the Park Theatre and the Metropolitan Opera House, in New York (Odell, 10:212).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Mark Twain House, Hartford (CtHMTH). MS facsimile, Raymond to SLC, undated, is copy-text for the enclosure. The editors have not seen the MS, which is also at CtHMTH.

Previous publication: L6, 525–29.

Provenance:The MS was one of ninety-two items found in the files of the Hartford law firm of Howard, Kohn, Sprague and Fitzgerald; they were donated as the Perkins Collection in January 1975 by William W. Sprague. Charles Perkins was a partner in this law firm (then called Perkins and Perkins) until his death in 1917 (“Large File of Twain Letters Discovered in Area Law Firm,” Hartford Courant, 11 Mar 1975).

Emendations and textual notes:

17 14 • 174