6? February 1870 • Buffalo, N.Y. (Paraphrase: New Orleans Times-Democrat,
7 May 82, UCCL 00400)
Thirty tons of paper have been used in publishing my book Innocents Abroad. It has met with a greater sale than any book ever published except Uncle Tom’s Cabin.1explanatory note The volumes sell from $3 to $5, according to finish, & Ⓐemendation I get one-half the profit. Not so bad for a scrub pilot, is it? How do you run Plum Point—a son-of-a-gun of a place?2explanatory note I would rather be a pilot than anything I ever tried.3explanatory note
enclosures of wedding cards 4explanatory note
on the flap of the inside envelope: lc Ⓐemendation
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel was a benchmark for Clemens in gauging sales of Innocents ( L3 , 440). But Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) sold in excess of 100,000 copies during its first six months, whereas Innocents sold 39,000 (Hart 1950, 110–12; Hirst 1975, 314, 316).
According to an 1857 river guide, Plum Point, near Osceola, Arkansas, was “one of the most difficult places to pass on the Mississippi. . . . Quite a number of boats have been lost here” (James, 33, 34). In 1875, in the second installment of “Old Times on the Mississippi,” Clemens had a group of pilots answer the same question he here asked Bixby, his piloting instructor in 1857–59 (SLC 1875, 221–22).
An assertion that Clemens made repeatedly (see L1 , 327, 358). In 1875 he expanded on it in his sixth installment of “Old Times on the Mississippi”:
I loved the profession far better than any I have followed since, and I took a measureless pride in it. The reason is plain: a pilot, in those days, was the only unfettered and entirely independent human being that lived in the earth. Kings are but the hampered servants of parliament and people; parliaments sit in chains forged by their constituency; the editor of a newspaper cannot be independent, but must work with one hand tied behind him by party and patrons, and be content to utter only half or two thirds of his mind; no clergyman is a free man and may speak the whole truth, regardless of his parish’s opinions; writers of all kinds are manacled servants of the public. We write frankly and fearlessly, but then we “modify” before we print. In truth, every man and woman and child has a master, and worries and frets in servitude; but in the day I write of, the Mississippi pilot had none. (SLC 1875, 721)
See also chapter 14 of Life on the Mississippi and the Autobiographical Dictation of 7 July 1908 (CU-MARK, in MTE , 304, and AMT , 291).
The text of this letter is based on Bixby’s report of it in an 1882 interview in which, asked if he ever heard from Clemens, he said, somewhat inaccurately: “Yes, he used to write, and let me know of his whereabouts. On his return from the Holy Land, he sent me a letter which contained his wedding card” (“Mark Twain. How the Boy Became a Pilot and the Pilot a Humorist,” New Orleans Times-Democrat, 7 May 82, 3, reprinted in part in Turner, 15–17). The cards and envelope are not known to survive: see 6? Feb 70 to Barnesclick to open link.
References
- Machlis, Paul, ed. Union Catalog of Clemens Letters. Edited by Paul Machlis. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. [In some cases, UCCL catalog numbers cited in this volume supersede those assigned in 1986 and reflect corrections or additions to the catalog since publication. An updated version of the catalog can be consulted via the Letters Search page at MTPO.] 1986
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 4: 1870–1871. Edited by Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, and Lin Salamo. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1995
- Clemens, Will M. Mark Twain: His Life and Work; A Biographical Sketch. San Francisco: Clemens Publishing Company. 1892
- University of California, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, Berkeley
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain to Mrs. Fairbanks. Edited by Dixon Wecter. San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library. 1949
- Turner, Arlin. “Notes on Mark Twain in New Orleans.” McNeese Review 6 (Spring): 10–22. 1954
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 3: 1869. Edited by Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, and Dahlia Armon. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1992
- Hart, James D. The Popular Book. A History of America’s Literary Taste. New York: Oxford University Press. 1950
- Hirst, Robert H. “The Making of The Innocents Abroad: 1867–1872.” Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley 1975
- James, U. P. River Guide: Containing Descriptions of All the Cities, Towns, and Principal Objects of Interest, on the Navigable Waters of the Mississippi Valley. Cincinnati: U. P. James. 1857
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). “Old Times on the Mississippi.” Atlantic Monthly 35 (January–June): 69–73, 217–24, 283–89, 446–52, 567–74, 721–30; Atlantic Monthly 36 (August): 190–96. 1875
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 1: 1853–1866. Edited by Edgar Marquess Branch, Michael B. Frank, and Kenneth M. Sanderson. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1988
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain in Eruption. Edited by Bernard DeVoto. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1940
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). PBA GalleriesThe Autobiography of Mark Twain. Edited by Charles Neider. New York: Harper and Brothers 1959
“Mark Twain. How the Boy Became a Pilot and the Pilot a Humorist,” New Orleans Times-Democrat, 7 May 82, 3.
L4 , 58–59; In addition to the copy-text, Will M. Clemens 1892, 94–95; “Pilot, 85, to Celebrate,” unidentified 1911 newspaper, PH in CU-MARK; MTMF , 114, excerpt; Turner, 16–17.
Bixby reported that a trunk of his effects, including the MS of this letter, was destroyed by fire in 1885 (“Pilot, 85, to Celebrate”).
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.