To
William Wright (Dan De Quille)
per Unidentified Stenographer
5 January 1876 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS, signed and with a postscript by SLC: CLjC, UCCL 01296)
(Stenographic letter.)
Hartford, Conn., Jany. 5th 1876
Dear Dan:—
Yours of Nov. 30th arrived some time ago, but I have been on the sick list for more than a month, and have written no letters. I am now trying to clean up the batch.
I have not seen Bliss to talk business with him for more than a month, and I do not really know whether he has even begun the book or not.1 Yesterday was the first time I have been down town in a long time, and I called there but Bliss was out of town.2 It is about time they were getting to work on the book, and you must write and keep Bliss reminded of that. You don’t know his slow ways as well as I do else you would write him every forty-eight hours. I shall try to stir him up when I get hold of him again.
The artist is almost done making the pictures for my next book, and he told me he supposed he was to begin on the sketches for yours next.3
I should think the new chapters you propose would be an admirable addition to the volume.
If I had Joe Goodman’s money and his brains I don’t think I would fool away the one and rack the other running an evening paper—or any other kind. But I suppose it is hard to get over old habits.4
Steve’s loss is sad enough. He is a brave boy to be able to go on working under it; it is something I am afraid I could not do.5
Billy has waited a long time—but it is never too late to do well, and to marry is to do well.6
Yes, you hope to go to Oakland!
But I begin to believe that if you owned a Bonanza you would rot away there in Virginia City and never leave. But keep on living in Sutro Tunnel7 and possibly you may make up your mind to retire to California yet, and be content to be comfortable.8
Yrs Ever
Mark
(Same old quill I used to use when we worked in the stable—she’s an awful ink-devourer.)9
Explanatory Notes
Wright’s letter of 30 November 1875, inquiring about progress on The Big Bonanza, his account of
Nevada’s Comstock silver mines, is now lost. In the spring of 1875 Clemens had encouraged him to write the book for
Elisha Bliss’s American Publishing Company (Wright 1876; see L6: 24 Mar 1875 to Bliss, 424-25; 24 May 1875 to Barnum, 487-88; 25 June 1875 to Howells, 500 n. 3; and
the following letters to Wright: 24 Mar 1875, 425-26; 29 Mar 1875, 432-33; 29 Mar
and 4 Apr 1875, 433-38; 29 Apr 1875, 472; 1 May 1875, 473)
The American Publishing Company offices were at 284 Asylum Street (Geer
1875, 295).
True Williams had begun illustrating
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
in November 1875 (5 Nov 1875 to Bliss, L6, 585–86). He was one of a number of artists who contributed to Wright’s book.
When not traveling, Goodman, wealthy from his Comstock investments and his 1874 sale of
the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, lived in San Francisco. He is not known to have returned to
journalism at this time (L6: 23 Apr 1874 to Finlay,
115-16; 29 Mar and 4 Apr 1875 to Wright, 439 n. 8).
Stephen E. Gillis, a typesetter on the Enterprise in the early
1860s, when Clemens first knew him, was currently news editor of the paper, according to his younger brother William’s recollections. He had suffered three losses in 1875. His daughter, Mary Louisa, died in February at age two and a half. In October his wife of eight years, Catherine (b. 1843), a niece of Joseph T. Goodman's wife, also died. Then in November he lost a second child, William, who was only fifteen months old (21 May 1864 to Laird, L1, 291-92 n. 3; AutoMT3, 469-70). His two remaining children were aged five and seven. The deaths demoralized Gillis for years. In a letter of 9 March 1881 (CU-MARK), Goodman told Clemens: Steve Gillis, I fear, is sort of going to the dogs. He has two children living—his wife died five
or six years ago. Two years ago he could have cleared up to $60,000 or $80,000 out of Sierra Nevada; but he
neglected the opportunity and is penniless now. Moreover I hear he has taken to drink, and has had the delerium
tremens once or twice. He was on the Enterprise the last I heard. The Sierra Nevada mine, discovered in 1859, had been a bonanza for its shareholders in 1878, when its stock suddenly bounded from $5 to $260 (Angel 1881 , 57, 612).
William R. Gillis (1840-1929) was married on 21 December 1875 to Elizabeth
Orr (1854-1929).
The tunnel through Mount Davidson, near Virginia City, Nevada, conceived and promoted by Adolph
H. Sutro to facilitate the transport of laborers and materials to the Comstock mines. It was not completed until 1878.
Wright never retired to California, remaining instead in Virginia City, where he witnessed the death of both the mining boom and
the Enterprise. In July of 1897 he finally left, moving to West Liberty, Iowa, to live with his married
daughter, Mell Evans. He died there on 16 March 1898, at the age of 68 (Doten 1973, 3:2229; Berkove
1988, 4).
In the spring of 1875, at Clemens’s urging, Wright had come to Hartford to work on The Big
Bonanza—in a study Clemens set up in the loft above his stable (see L6, 487–88). Wright next wrote, probably before receiving the present letter (CtY-BR): John Mackay made part of his multimillion-dollar fortune in the Consolidated Virginia and California mines, in
which the big bonanza strike of 1874 was made. In a letter of 17 September
1875 (UCCL 11612), Clemens had asked Wright to inquire of Mackay and other wealthy mine investors
for “begging letters” to add to his collection of “this sort of literature” (L6: 29 Mar and 4 Apr 1875 to Wright, 439 n. 9; 17 Sept 1875 to
Wright, 535). Wright’s dedication as published read: TO JOHN MACKAY, Esq.
prince of miners
and “boss” of the big bonanza
is this book
respectfully inscribed
His published preface was:
I have put all I had to say into the body of this book; but, being informed that a preface is a necessary evil, I
have written this one.
the author
His credit to the photographers, which appeared at the head of the “List of Illustrations,”
read: Note
The illustrations of mining works, scenery, and machinery are from photographs taken on the
spot by John S. Noe and E. Hurd, of Virginia City, Nevada. (Wright 1876, v, xxix,
xxxix) H. B. Loomis (d. 1893) was until 1881 a local reporter on the Enterprise, the Gold Hill
(Nevada) Evening News, and other papers. Noe (d. 1889) and Hurd were well-known local photographers (Doten 1973, 2: passim, esp. 1380; 3: passim, esp. 1735, 2232).
Source text(s):Previous publication:
Berkove 1988, 8–9.
Provenance:
See the Morris Collection in Description of Provenance.
