editorial office of the atlantic monthly. the riverside press, cambridge, mass.
October 18, 1876.
My dear Clemens:
I have been putting the Atlantic people up to a little enterprise, which I think will be a pretty thing, and I appeal to you with all the generosity of a man who knows he is asking a favor, to share in the impending prosperity. I have persuaded them to attempt a series of reprints of one-number stories from the Atlantic, with a page like the enclosed, to which they will fit an elegant cover and make the most stylish little book ever published in this country.
Now why can’t you let us start the Atlantic Series with your Carnival of Crime? It is a thing apart from your other writings, and wouldn’t in the course of nature be collected into a volume of sketches for some years. This publication wouldn’t hurt the volume, and it would put money in your purse, besides starting the Series brilliantly. Don’t consent for my sake—you’re capable of it!—but if you can consent with comfort and confidence, do it.—The print will be lifted and backed a little on the page so as to give a deep bottom and side margin, as in the Elzevirs. We mean to make something exquisite.—I sent you the Ah-Sin titles some days ago. I shall be curious to know the outcome of your undertaking. I think Harte has acted crazily about the criticism of his play, but he’s been shamefully decried and abused. Of course no man knows till he’s tried how absurdly he’ll act, but I wish Harte had not been tried.
Yours ever
W. D. Howells.
