23 February 1874 • (2nd of 2) • Hartford, Conn. (MS: Jacobs, UCCL 01053)
Wrote you a moment ago about the lecture. If we are to lecture, it would be a good item to start afloat that I have been offered $20,000 to lecture 30 times. , & declined.
{Privately, the truth is, I was offered $25,000 to lecture 30 times, but it is a good deal wiser to tell the public only about as much of a thing as they can believe without straining too much. Part of the truth is often a deal more effective than the whole of it.}1explanatory note
letter docketed: boston lyceum bureau. james redpath. feb 25 1874 Ⓐemendation and Mark Twain | Feb 23.
This offer, which works out to $833 per lecture, far exceeded the fees Clemens had earned during his 1868–72 lecture tours—usually $75–$150, but also, very infrequently, $200 or $250. He repeatedly claimed to have declined munificent offers, notice of which he thought useful in publicizing his books and lectures. Later in 1874 he reportedly refused a lucrative proposal from Redpath himself (25? Sept 74 to Redpathclick to open link). He actually earned such large fees on only a few isolated occasions—an October 1866 lecture in Virginia City, Nevada, which probably paid him nearly $800; an April 1868 San Francisco lecture, which paid about $1,600; and a pair of February 1873 New York lectures, which together paid $1,300. The price Clemens could command may have increased as a result of the great success of his lectures in England in 1873 and 1874, but what he earned there is not known. No source for the present offer has been identified, but Redpath evidently did start the amount “afloat” in the Boston Advertiser of Tuesday, 3 March 1874:
Mark Twain is to deliver his famous lecture on “Roughing It” in Horticultural Hall on Thursday. He gave this lecture in a large hall in London for three weeks—six evenings and two matinées each week. He finally got so tired of it that he packed up his carpetbag and left. He was recently offered $25,000 for thirty lectures in the great cities of America. He hates travel, and is rich, and refused the offer. (“Lecture Notes,” 3)
( L2 , 209 n. 2, 212; L3 , 44 n. 2, 106 n. 2, 384 n. 9; L4 , 133, 401 nn. 4, 6, 9; L5 , 121, 123–24 n. 5, 128, 210 n. 8, 269, 270 n. 3, 274 n. 1 bottom, 281 n. 2, 319, 452–54 n. 2, 492–93, 682–83.)
References
- Collection of Victor and Irene Murr Jacobs. Dispersed by sale in 1996. But ODa2 is still primary source.
- 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
- Sotheby. The Victor and Irene Murr Jacobs Collection, Sold for the Benefit of the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Sale no. 6904 (29 October). New York: Sotheby’s. 1996
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 6: 1874–1875. Edited by Michael B. Frank and Harriet Elinor Smith. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 2002
- Henkels. Valuable Private Library of Harold Pierce of Philadelphia. Part 3. Sale no. 892 (5 and 6 May). Philadelphia: Stan V. Henkels. 1903
- American Art Association. First Editions and Library Sets . . . from the Library of Charles L. Dana, M.D., of New York City . . . Including Selections from the Library of Guy B. Stearns, M.D. Sale of 19 and 20 January. New York: American Art Association. 1927
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 2: 1867–1868. Edited by Harriet Elinor Smith, Richard Bucci, and Lin Salamo. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1990
- 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
- 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, collection of Victor and Irene Murr Jacobs, seen at Sotheby’s, New York City, while awaiting sale (Sotheby 1996).
L6 , 43; Henkels 1903, lot 636, excerpt; AAA 1927, lot 125, paraphrase; Sotheby 1996, lot 198, excerpt.
When offered for sale in 1903 the MS was part of the collection of Harold Pierce. In February 1980 it belonged to James Pepper of Maurice F. Neville Rare Books. In 1981 the Jacobses purchased it from the Rendells. It was offered for sale again on 29 October 1996 through Sotheby’s.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.