20 May 1880 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: NNC, UCCL 01808)
O, dear me! never will I have anything to do with a business matter again as long as I live. I made Bliss cable the price of the cuts, purposely that Chatto might cable back & stop the manufacture if dissatisfied. Now at this late day he writes & complains of the price.
Moreover, he talks about an “understanding” had with me that the cuts should cost be at about cost of casting them. I have no other understanding about other people’s affairs. I cannot dictate to Mr. Bliss what he shall charge for his own cuts. I Mr. Chatto sent a distinct order for those cuts, & he knew what they were to cost the very day they went into the electrotyper’s hands. He could have stopped the thing if he had wanted to. Bliss says that the engravings originally cost him (with artists’ work,) a large sum of money, & he does not see why he should give them to anybody at cost of casting.
I However, it seems to me I am writing a dam sight of letters on other folks’s business—so I’ll stop, & get a fan.
References
- Columbia University, New York
- 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
- Microfilm Edition of Mark Twain’s Previously Unpublished Letters. Prepared by Anh Quynh Bui, Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, Robert H. Hirst, Lin Salamo, and Harriet Elinor Smith. 8 vols. Berkeley: The Bancroft Library. 2001
MS, 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.