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Explanatory Notes        Apparatus Notes (Ⓐ)

Source: Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass ([MH-H])

Cue: "I like the"

Source format: "MS"

Letter type: "[standard letter]"

Notes:

Last modified:

Revision History: AB

Published on MTPO: 2007

Print Publication: v6

MTPDocEd
To H. O. Houghton and Company
12 February 1875 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: MH-H, UCCL 01192)
slc/mtⒶemendation                        farmington avenue, hartford.
Feb. 12.
Gentlemen:1explanatory note

I like the whole plan except the money side of it. I do not believe there would be much money in it, & I find that trying to support a family is a thing which compels one to look at all ventures with a mercenary eye. I hope to see a day when I can publish in a way which shall please my fancy best & not mind what the banking result may be—but that time has not come yet; & so I must not venture in this attractive case & in this goodly company, though I thank you all the same for the compliment you pay me in proposing it.

Yrs Truly
Samℓ. L. Clemens

P. S. I shall not mention your plan to any one.2explanatory note

letter docketed: Sam’l L. Clemens

Textual Commentary
12 February 1875 • To H. O. Houghton and Company • Hartford, Conn. • UCCL 01192
Source text(s):

MS, Houghton Library, Harvard University (MH-H, shelf mark bMS Am 1925 [390]).

Previous Publication:

L6 , 379–80; MTLP , 83; Monteiro, 9–10.

Provenance:

deposited by Houghton, Mifflin Company sometime after 1943.

More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.

Explanatory Notes
1 

Clemens answered the following letter (CU-MARK):

UCLC32104

the riverside press, cambridge, mass.            hurd & houghton, publishers.

boston office, 219 washington st.                        13 astor place, new york.

the riverside press is a regular station of the western union telegraph company,

and is in direct communication with every telegraph office in the country

riverside, cambridge, mass.

6 February 187 5

Confidential

Dear Sir: We should like to ask your favorable consideration of a scheme which we have formed, in carrying out which your cooperation would be of great value. We have been struck with the comparatively slight attention paid by American publishers to American fiction. In the various “libraries of select fiction” American authors find small place, and the general style of presentation is rarely such as to attract public notice. We ourselves have published but few novels, except the standard ones, of Dickens & Cooper, but it is our wish, having no entanglements with modern British novelists, to make a specialty of the publication of bright, short American novels, giving them all the prominence which very careful attention to the printing and binding can secure, making them cheap, advertising them widely and securing thus popularity for the several books and all possible reputation as well as profit for the authors.

We design to make this series, which we have projected, exclusively of the foremost American novelists; of high grade in respect of literature, selecting the writers with care, and more desirous of getting a few notable books than of publishing a long list of good bad and indifferent ones. We wish to make the series an event in American literature, showing that when publishers and authors combine they can show that there is an independent class of American fiction worthy of all prominence. We mean to see what the Riverside Press can do in turning out a set of books, inexpensive yet beautiful to the eye and with elements of wide and lasting popularity.

Pray set down any excessive to our enthusiasm and not to any spirit of brag, and let us ask if we may not count on you for No I in this series? We trust you will give this matter favorable consideration and we should be glad to confer further with you, either personally or by letter. Meanwhile have the kindness to regard our communication as confidential as we wish to perfect our plans before any part of them become public.

We remain

Very truly yours,
H. O. Houghton & Co.

Samℓ L. Clemens Esq

Hartford Ct.

2 

The company wrote again on 20 February, urging Clemens to reconsider, and expressing the hope that “we are not so far apart in the business as your letter might indicate” (CU-MARK). Clemens either failed to respond, or declined again in a letter not known to survive. For the relationship between Houghton and Company, Hurd and Houghton, and the Riverside Press, see 11 Dec 74 to Houghton and Company, n. 1click to open link.

Emendations and Textual Notes
Ⓐ  slc  ●  torn away

References

  1. Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass.
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. Monteiro, George. “New Mark Twain Letters.” Mark Twain Journal 17 (Summer): 9–10. 1974
  6. University of California, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, Berkeley
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