23 January 1881 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: MH-H, UCCL 01895)
That concern is not going to bust, I reckon. They have sold 4,000 copies of my old books in the 3 months ending Dec. 31.
Have examined their inventories, & find their liabilities $80,000, & their assets $84,000. No copyrights are mentioned as assets. They’ve got everything inventoried away up yonder! One of their “assets” (continued from year to year,) is a debt of Bret Harte’s! ($2,000.) Others are considerable sums which the impecunious distant relatives of the late publisher owe. The plates of my six books are inventoried in the aggregate at $8,300. They ought to have been inventoried as old type metal—& inferior at that. I think they would have come nearer the truth if they had made their assets $50,000.
My books (cloth) are set at a cost of 50¢ for Sawyer, & 65 & 70 for the big books.
References
- Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass.
- 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
- 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
MS, Rogers Memorial Room, MH-H (shelf mark bMS Thr 470, 28).
MTLP, 131–32.
The Henry M. Rogers and Kathleen Rogers Collection was donated in 1930.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.