4 July 1870 • Elmira, N.Y. (MS: Daley, UCCL 00486)
Mr Langdon is ever so much better, & we have every reason to believe that he is going to get well, & that speedily.
I fancy the book you speak of must be the Appleton book.1explanatory note I cannot think of any other, & have no knowledge of any other. But I shall probably never have to do the Appleton book. They asked me to name a price. I named a pretty stiff one. And at the same time, I said that if it were a subscription book I could afford easier terms. They misunderstood me and thought that I was suggesting that it be made a subscription work—& so they accepted the idea my suggestion and offered higher pay than I spoke. Ⓐemendation of. But I wrote them immediately that they had misconstrued me, & that I could not do a subscription book for them at any price whatever. And moreover, that I could n do nothing more than the original proposition called for. And that I could not even do that unless I could do it either before or immediately after my Adirondack trip. They have had two or ample to time Ⓐemendation to have written me half a dozen times since, & haven’t done it. Therefore it is far from likely that any “humorous book” is will issue from my pen shortly.
If Mr L. gets thoroughly well, in time, my wife & I will go straight from Buffalo to Vergennes, Vt., the Ⓐemendation at the end of July, & be joined there by the Twichells. It is our shortest & straightest route to the woods.
We shall be here 10 days or 2 weeks yet. Come—come either here or to Buf.2explanatory note
letter docketed: ✓ and Mark Twain | July 4/70 and Elmira—N.Y.
Bliss’s letter is not known to survive. Clemens never published a book with Appleton and Company (20 May 70 to Blissclick to open link; 23–26 June 70 to Appleton and Company).
For more than two months Clemens had been expecting Bliss to come “talk books & business” (23 Apr 70 to Blissclick to open link).
References
- Collection of Robert Daley
- 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
- Wecter, Dixon. The Love Letters of Mark Twain. Edited by Dixon Wecter. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1949
- Hill, Hamlin, ed. Mark Twain’s Letters to His Publishers, 1867–1894. Edited by Hamlin Hill. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1967
- Sotheby. Fine Books and Manuscripts. Sale no. 6515 (10 and 11 December). New York: Sotheby’s. 1993
MS, collection of Robert Daley until 1993.
L4 , 161–162; LLMT , 153, brief quotation; MTLP , 36.
The MS evidently remained among the American Publishing Company’s files until it was sold (and may have been at that time copied by Dana Ayer; see Brownell Collection in Description of Provenance). The Ayer transcription was in turn copied by a typist and both the handwritten and typed transcriptions are at WU. Sold in 1993 to an unidentified purchaser (Sotheby 1993, lot 216).
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.