To George M. Smith
To James Redpath
4 October 1870 • Fredonia, N.Y.
(MS: MH-H, UCCL 00510)

‸ Private. ‸

Fredonia, Oct. 4.1

Geo. M. Smith Esq 2
Dear Sir:

‸Dear Redpath:‸ T If Mr. Prang is the shrewd manager I take him to be I can insure money to him & to myself too, if he (and to you likewise, for I will give you one-fifth of any terms you can get him to pay me, either in the way of per centage or purchase of copyright.) The idea is this: Let this Map boom along & advertise itself all it possibly can, by appearing in the Galaxy, the World, the Boston Sun, & the &c., & some of Bliss’s Am. Pub. Co. posters,3 & thus advertise itself till it is a great celebrity & everybody anxious to get & keep a copy (for papers are always lost or destroyed bev before a person can cut a thing out,) and then, on top of this great tide of popularity,4 come out with a nice, picturesque Chromo, revised, corrected, certain startiling essentials added, (—certain portraits of sovereigns & generals, maybe—& some more letter-press description & remarks——and if it don’t sell an awful swathe of copies I miss my guess. This improved edition I would draft & copyright. If Prang should issue the present one, & co (which I do not object to, but do tender to him my appreciation of his honorable conduct in first consulting me,) & [ is it ] should strike a successful current, any other lithographer or all the lithographers ‸& chromo men‸ could come in & cripple the speculation if they chose, for there is no copyright on the Map.

If you will get up a bargain with Prang for this thing, & send me a written contract to sign with him, ‸for I‸ I will improve this Map in such a way that people shall say “Oh that Map that was in the papers isn’t the best—what you want is the Chromo.” And I will give you one-fifth of whatever terms Prang will make with me. ‸—for it is not your business to work for me for nothing, nor mine to ask you to do it.‸ 5

Never mind that photograph—I its cost was the merest trifle—I never dre thought of such a thing as your paying for [ it.] 6 [ ‸OVER‸ ]

Yrs. Truly

Samℓ. L. Clemens.

P. S. Send your answer to BUFFALO, as usual. I return there day after to-morrow. Letters & telegrams easily reach me—& besides I may return there any moment.

[OVER].

Do not you see, yourself, that all this gratuitious advertising makes [ it per ] the new edition ‸(provided we issue one)‸ far more profitable & easy of circulation than if we could have made ‸the case with‸ an original unadvertised chromo of [ this the ] Map? It is perfectly plain to me.

S. L. C.

Friend Redpath—You see I wrote all that to Geo. M. Smith (129 Washington st. Boston), but I have changed my mind & write it to you, because I have no mind to be bribing Prang’s agents to [ be ] influence him in a business matter. I do not write Prang himself because it would make delay, & this advertising ought to be taken advantage of. You are a good talker & a good bargainer, & besides I know you & have confidence in your fidelity. [ ( ]

I think there is a deal of money in this thing ( for the [ may map ] is celebrated all over the continent, & yet even in Boston where it has been published just ask, for cu every man you meet for one day & you will find that he has heard of but not seen it,) it. Now do you go to Prang & talk it up & make a bargain with him & draw a contract & send it along—& without the least trouble in the world we shall take in some money. And can’t you get out a German edition?

I will now write Mr. Smith & say: “Mr. Prang has my permission to print the present Map., of course, but I have written to Mr. Redpath ‸(my lecture & business agent)‸ suggesting that he see you & Mr. Prang and propose the drafting of a new & improved edition of the work &, to be copyrighted & thus made p available for profit to both himself & me.”

Can Will you put this thing right through, Redpath? Write or telegraph me a word.

Yrs

Mark.

[letter docketed:] boston lyceum bureau. redpath & fall. oct 8 1870 [and] Sam L. Clemens | Oct. 4 ’70

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Clemens and Olivia spent most, if not all, of the first week of October in Fredonia, visiting his family. The visit had been planned since mid-June, but was delayed by the fatal illnesses of Jervis Langdon and Emma Nye (“Local and Miscellaneous,” Fredonia Censor, 5 Oct 70, 3; 12 June 70 to PAM; 13 Oct 70 to Bliss; JLC to SLC and OLC, 28 July 70, CU-MARK).

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2 George M. Smith and Company was a Boston bookseller and publisher, as well as the American Publishing Company’s general agent for New England. Smith was also an agent of some kind for Louis Prang (see note 5) (Boston Directory 1870, 611, 742; “Advertisements,” Author’s Sketch Book 1 [Nov 70]: 3–4; advertisement, Portland [Maine] Transcript, 19 Mar 70, 407).

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3 Clemens’s “Fortifications of Paris” was reprinted in the supplement of the Boston Sun on 25 September, on the first page of the New York World on 2 October, and by Clemens himself in the November Galaxy, where it was tipped in as a folded insert. It may also have been used in one of the advertising posters Bliss published for The Innocents Abroad, but no copy of such a poster has been found (Howard, item 5; 22 Sept 70 to Bliss, nn. 1, 3; 29 Oct 70 to Bliss, n. 1).

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4 The Boston Evening Transcript of 8 November 1870 (4) reported striking evidence of the popularity of Clemens’s burlesque:

The Galaxy has printed and sold of the November number four editions. The first edition was as large as has ever been called for before during an entire month; but this time the entire edition was sold within five days of its publication [in mid-October], and three times since then the publishers have been obliged to stop all other work to get out fresh editions. This looks like success.

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5 Louis Prang (1824–1909), the Prussian-born lithographer, had started in business in Boston in 1856. In 1867 he had added a large printing establishment in nearby Roxbury to satisfy the great demand for his colored lithographs of famous paintings—“chromos” as he was the first to call them. Prang’s interest in producing a chromolithograph of Clemens’s “Fortifications of Paris” grew out of his publication of genuine war maps. In 1861 he produced the first such map marketed in the United States, a lithograph of Charleston harbor, placed on sale within a few days of the attack on Fort Sumter, the opening engagement of the Civil War. Subsequently he published and sold large numbers of other Civil War maps and battle plans. In 1870 he published maps of the Franco-Prussian War showing the actual fortifications of Paris (Prang 1870 [bib12085], 1870 [bib12086]). Prang was evidently “consulting” Clemens through his agent George M. Smith.

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6 Clemens had doubtless sent a copy of one of his most recent photographs to Smith upon request (20? May 70 to Paige; 8 July 70 to OLC, n. 3).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Houghton Library, Harvard University (MH-H).

Previous publication: L4, 201–204.

Provenance:bequeathed to MH in 1918 by Evert J. Wendell.

Emendations and textual notes:

is it • ist

it. • [possibly ‘it.—’]

‸OVER‸ • [capitals simulated, not underscored; deletion implied]

OVER • [capitals simulated, not underscored]

it per • it per- |

this the • thise

be • [doubtful]

( • [doubtful]

may map • mayp