24 March 1875 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: CU-BANC, UCCL 01215)
I have just dropped this note to my publisher:
“Friend Bliss—Called twice to suggest that there is money in a book about the Big Bonanza if tackled immediately—& likewise to suggest that Wm H Wright (“Dan de Quille”) of the Virginia City “Enterprise” is the a good man to write a stirring & truthful history of it book about it, because he has been City Editor of that paper more than 14 years, & knows it all—& everybody.
“If you like the idea, drop him a line.”
I gave Bliss the idea, also, that the book ought really to be The Story of the Comstock Slv Ⓐemendation Silver Lode, with all the strange & romantic fortunes & incidents connected with it,—& let the Bonanza be the grand climax. It is a superb subject. And I added: “The first big compliment I ever received was that I was almost worthy to write in the same column with Dan de Quille.”
1. In case Bliss writes you, Dan—
2.—And you do not own the Bonanza yourself—
3—And you like the notionⒶemendation of writing the book—
I will observe that the usual royalty paid by subscription houses is 4 per cent on the retail price of the book. So you should get that—& one or two per cent more, if you can. The book should be 500 or 600 pages 8vo, & sell for $3.50 up to $5 per copy.
I get 5 per cent on Innocents Abroad & it has paid me $25,000 or $30,000. I get 7½ per cent on Roughing It. It has sold something over 100,000 copies, & consequently has paid me about the same aggregate that Innocents has.2explanatory note
I make give the above items for your guidance.
If you should write a book will you come & stay in my house while you read your proofs, Dan?
Clemens did not mail this letter for several days (see 29 Mar and 4 Apr 75 to Wrightclick to open link).
See 22 May 74 to Bliss, n. 2.click to open link American Publishing Company bindery records indicate that by the end of February 1875, about 114,000 copies of The Innocents Abroad and 88,363 copies of Roughing It had been bound. Although the average cover price per book sold during this period is not known, a surviving statement for the second half of 1875 records an average price of only $3.56. Even a slightly higher estimated average—$3.60—would have yielded a royalty of only $20,292 from Innocents and $23,593 from Roughing It (APC: 1866–79, 102–10, 195, 203; 1876 [bib13336]; see L4 , 176 n. 4).
References
- University of California, The Bancroft Library, Berkeley
- 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 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
- American Publishing Company. “Statement of copyright due Samuel L. Clemens.” Statement dated 1 January. Scrapbook 10:24, CU-MARK. 1876
- 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, Dan De Quille Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, California (CU-BANC).
L6 , 425–426.
The De Quille Papers were donated in 1953 by Henry L. Day, through the courtesy of Joel E. Ferris.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.