21 March 1872 • Elmira, N.Y. (MS: CtY-BR, UCCL 00738)
At last I have sat down in earnest & looked the new book through—& my verdict is, better a long sight leave the Jumping Frog out. There is too much fun in the book as it is. For Heaven’s sake let us not add to it. Don’tⒶemendation hesitate about it but just take the Frog out. What we want, is that the book she shouldⒶemendation be the best we can make it. We seriously injure it by putting in the f Frog. 1explanatory note Such is the settled belief of
P. S. After all the preparations for putting this book on the market right you have let yourself get caught in a close place with a short edition. That wasn’t like you. 2explanatory note
The “new book” was the printer’s copy for a collection of sketches which, in December 1870, Clemens had prepared and contracted to publish with Bliss. By 5 January 1871 he had drawn up a table of contents and prepared most or all of the printer’s copy for thirty-eight sketches, but by 27 January he had postponed further work on it until after Roughing It was published. As Clemens wrote Roughing It, he removed from the sketchbook printer’s copy one or more unpublished sketches, as well as five previously printed ones, incorporating them into his narrative. And although he probably did no substantial work on the sketchbook in late 1871 or early 1872, he may have added a few sketches from the Buffalo Express and the American Publisher ( ET&S1 , 595 n. 141). Bliss had again suggested an addition to the contents: “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” Ever since Clemens purchased the plates of his Jumping Frog book in December 1870, Bliss had consistently favored—and Clemens had just as consistently opposed—including its title sketch in the new sketchbook. Clemens’s preference was to reprint it in a pamphlet with only a few other pieces, as he ultimately did in 1874 with Mark Twain’s Sketches. Number One. The present letter indicates that Clemens had brought the printer’s copy for the sketchbook with him to Elmira, intending to ready it again for publication. Within the next few days, however, he accepted an offer from George Routledge and Sons to reprint his sketches in England. He used the printer’s copy he had on hand, doubling its size with some two or three dozen additional sketches and sending the whole to England (see 31 Mar 72 to Osgood, n. 4click to open link). Bliss seems to have made no objection to deferring the American sketchbook once again: apparently by mutual consent, Mark Twain’s Sketches, New and Old was not published until 1875 ( L4 , 281, 282–83 n. 5, 295–96, 319; RI 1993 , 826–28; ET&S1 , 571–86, 589–90, 608, 611; SLC 1865 [MT00383], 1867 [MT00505], 1874 [MT01134], 1875).
The Chicago Tribune reported on 17 March:
Owing to the immense rush for Mark Twain’s new book, “Roughing It,” from all parts of the country, the publishers have been unable to manufacture them fast enough to meet the demand; but we are assured by Messrs. F. G. Gilman & Co., general agents for the Northwest, that they are increasing their facilities for manu[f]acture, and will soon be able to fill all orders promptly. The thousands of our citizens who have subscribed will soon receive the book at the hands of their gentlemanly canvassers. (“Mark Twain,” 5)
A similar report appeared in the Elmira Advertiser on 24 March (“In Great Demand,” 4). The binding records of the American Publishing Company show that from February through June 1872, at least 10,000 copies a month were bound, the peak coming in May with 16,905 copies. Since 30,000 orders had been received by 18 March, but only 23,695 copies were bound by the end of the month, Bliss’s “edition” was indeed “short” (APC, 74–76, 109; 18 Mar 72 to Howellsclick to open link; RI 1993 , 890, gives 24,676 copies for March because it includes 981 copies bound on 1 and 2 April).
References
- Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven, Conn.
- 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
- 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
- Yale University, Sterling Memorial Library, New Haven, Conn.
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Early Tales & Sketches, Volume 1 (1851–1864). Edited by Edgar Marquess Branch and Robert H. Hirst, with the assistance of Harriet Elinor Smith. The Works of Mark Twain. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 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
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Roughing It. Edited by Harriet Elinor Smith, Edgar Marquess Branch, Lin Salamo, and Robert Pack Browning. The Works of Mark Twain. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. This edition supersedes the one published in 1972. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1993
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog.” New York Saturday Press 4 (18 November): 248–49. Reprinted in ET&S2, 262–72, 282–88. 1865
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches. Edited by John Paul. New York: C. H. Webb. 1867
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Sketches. Number One. Authorised Edition. New York: American News Company. 1874
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Sketches, New and Old. Hartford: American Publishing Company. 1875
- APC (American Publishing Company). “Books received from the Binderies, Dec 1st 1866 to Dec 31. 1879,” the company’s stock ledger, NN-BGC[bib10288]. 1866–79
MS, Willard S. Morse Collection, Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University (CtY-BR).
L5 , 69–71; MTLP , 72–73.
The Morse Collection was donated to CtY in 1942 by Walter F. Frear.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.