18 March 1872 • Elmira, N.Y. (MS: MH-H, UCCL 00732)
We are very much obliged for the book—which came today. We bought it & read it some time ago, but we prize this copy most on account of the autograph.1explanatory note I would like to send you a copy of my book, but I can’t get a copy myself, yet, because 30,000 people who have bought & paid for it have to have preference over the author. But how is that for 2 months’ sale?2explanatory note But I’m going to send you one when I get a chance.3explanatory note We have just arrived here on a 2 months’ holiday. I shove my love at you & the other Atlantics & Every Saturdays.
Howells had sent a copy of Their Wedding Journey (Boston: James R. Osgood and Co., 1872) inscribed “To Mr. Samuel L. Clemens with the regards of W. D. Howells. Cambridge, March 15, 1872” (Gribben, 1:335). Serialized in the Atlantic Monthly from July through December 1871, the novel was published in book form on 19 December. On 30 December Olivia mentioned that she had begun reading it (Howells 1979, 387 n. 4; L4 , 523 n. 2).
Canvassers began taking orders for Roughing It as early as 7 December, so Clemens’s reference here to “2 months’ sale,” suggesting a starting point in mid-January, is inaccurate. In later statements the American Publishing Company as well as Clemens counted sales from the beginning of February—that is, after receipt of the first bound books (advertisement, American Publisher 2 June 72: 6; 20 Apr 72 to Redpath, n. 4click to open link). Bliss made sure that the impressive results of the canvass were reported in the newspapers. By 8 February, according to the Hartford Courant, twenty thousand orders had been received (“Brief Mention,” 8 Feb 72, 2). On 23 February the Hartford Evening Post reported that the book was selling “very rapidly”: “25,000 orders have been received, and six hundred or eight hundred copies are being shipped per day” (“Our Publishing Companies,” 23 Feb 72, 2). On 1 March the Elmira Advertiser called it “the most popular book of the season, if not of the century,” adding, “It is almost impossible—at any rate it is exceedingly difficult—to procure books fast enough to supply the demand” (“Roughing It,” 4; RI 1993, 875, 876, 890; see also 21 Mar 72 to Bliss, n. 2click to open link).
References
- Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass.
- 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 5: 1872–1873. Edited by Lin Salamo and Harriet Elinor Smith. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1997
- MTHL. Mark Twain–Howells Letters. Edited by Henry Nash Smith and William M. Gibson, with the assistance of Frederick Anderson. 2 vols. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 1960
- Gribben, Alan. Mark Twain’s Library: A Reconstruction. 2 vols. Boston: G. K. Hall and Co. 1980
- Howells, William Dean. W. D. Howells, Selected Letters, Volume 1: 1852–1872. Edited and annotated by George Arms, Richard H. Ballinger, Christoph K. Lohmann, and John K. Reeves. Textual editors Don L. Cook, Christoph K. Lohmann, and David Nordloh. Boston: Twayne Publishers. 1979
- 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
MS, Houghton Library, Harvard University (MH-H).
L5 , 58–59; MTHL , 1:9–10.
The MS is one of 225 letters from Clemens to William Dean Howells, dating from 1872 to 1909, purchased by MH in 1937 from Howells’s children, Mildred Howells and John Mead Howells.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.