To Chatto and Windus per Unidentified Amanuensis
25 August 1881 • Boston, Mass.
(MS: UkReU, UCCL 01591)
jro and co.
james r. osgood and co. publishersboston
Aug. 25. 1881.
Messrs Chatto & Windus—
Dear Sirs: I will take the royalties which you have proposed to pay me on “Prince & Pauper” (as per your letter of July 15 forwarded to me through Mr. Osgood.)
It is very difficult to determine which offer was the best, yours or Routledge’s; consequently it was quite easy for me to make a choice. I mean, things being about equal, I greatly prefer to remain with publishers who suit me so entirely, & whose energy in pushing books has been so amply evidenced.
Mr. Osgood showed me your account of sales on “Tramp” to July 1st, & he said you had given it to Conway for transmission. Conway has forgotten to send it, I suppose. But that is no matter, inasmuch as we have it; if the notes had accompanied the statement, I should feel it best to have Conway killed, on account of the delay; but as they were not then due, he has not committed a capital offense.
Yours very truly
S. L. Clemens.
Source text(s):Previous publication:
Welland 1978, 107, partial publication; MicroPUL, reel 2.
Provenance:
The archives of Chatto and Windus have been on deposit at UkReU since the late 1970s and early 1980s and make up a part of its collection of Records of British Publishing and Printing. Chatto and Windus was purchased by the Random House Group in 1987.
