MTPDocEd
slc Dear Conway—I’ve a letter from Routledge wanting the Old Times on Mississippi & my
Bermuda articles for a book.Ⓐ
on a royalty.1
Now my impression is, that my English matters are in your
hands, on the same per centage paid you for attending to Tom Sawyer.2 It is also my impression that you are about to open
negotiations with Chatto, & doubtless with Routledge too, for this very book (with
the addition of a nice
unique short story which I shall send to Chatto for his magazine about a week hence.)3 Please tell me at once if I my
impressions are correct, so I can answer Routledge.4
Explanatory Notes
1 The letter from George Routledge and Sons, Clemens’s former English
publishers, is not known to survive.
2 In 1876 Conway had acted as Clemens’s agent in contracting with Chatto and
Windus for the publication in England of
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Clemens had
agreed to pay him a commission of 5 per cent of the profits on that edition (9 Apr
1876 to Conway).
3
“The Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence and Rosannah Ethelton” (see 10 Dec 1877
to Chatto, n. 3). Conway replied (CU-MARK):
office of “belgravia”
of “the gentleman’s magazine” & of “academy notes”
london. w. Jan 1 187 8
Dear Clemens,
First of all a happy New Year to you & yours!—old-fashioned but never
more heartfelt.
Your note came today & here I am. Chatto & I have consulted & bargained;
and he proposes to bring out your new all-inclusive book, so soon as our two
shilling Tom Sawyer (just out) is a little out of the way. On each copy of the
“Random Notes of an Idle Excursion”—which we both think would be the best
label,—you will get 4d per copy. That is the biggest available royalty (about 17 per
cent of two shillings) which can be got on a cheap book. If any body offers more
than that he is sure to cheat and we do not wish nor mean to be cheated.—All
will go well. Chatto means to sell lots of the cheap books.
I have had to hurry this note to catch boat.
Write to Routledge that you have arranged elsewhere
Chatto and Windus issued An Idle Excursion and Other Papers in 1878. In addition to
“Some Rambling Notes” and the Alonzo and Rosannah story, its contents
were: “Old Times on the Mississippi,” “A Literary Nightmare,” “The Facts
Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut,” “The Canvasser’s Tale,”
and Clemens’s 1876 speech on the weather to the New England Society (20 Dec 1876 to Perkins, n. 1).
4 No such letter to the Routledges has been found.
Emendations and Textual Notes
Ⓐ
book
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●
deletion implied
Copyright © 2007–2026 The Regents of the University of California. Full copyright statement: https://www.marktwainproject.org/copyright.html
MS, correspondence card, Conway Papers, NNC.
MicroPUL, reel 1.
The Conway Papers were acquired by NNC sometime after Conway’s death in 1907.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.