Explanatory Notes        Apparatus Notes (Ⓐ)
This text has been superseded by a newly published text
MTPDocEd
To Moncure D. Conway
9 April 1876 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: NNC, UCCL 01320)
(SUPERSEDED)
Hartford, Apl. 9.
My Dear Conway:

Got your letter yesterday, & it seemed to me that the advantages of the two propositions were exactly evenly balanced. It was so puzzling a question that I was sorry you hadn’t decided it yourself, & commanded me accordingly. I finally submitted the matter to Mrs. Clemens, & she said, “Take the royalty; it simplifies everything; removes all risk; requires no outlay of capital; makes the labor easy for Mr. Conway; a gain of 25 per cent profit is hardly worth the trouble & risk of publishing on your own account.”1explanatory note

I said “All right”—& so telegraphed you to take the royalty. If I could have written, I would simply have said, “Decide the question for yourself, & if you want the 5 £500, telegraph me so.”

Indeed it is not too late to say that yet ., if unless your contract is already closed. We certainly cannot issue here before May 1st, if we can even do it then. Hardly any of the pictures are finished yet. I have read only 2 chapters in proof, & they had blanks for the cuts. Perhaps, in view of this delay, it may be best to take the royalty & leave Chatto to take the risk—that is, if he is still willing.

A week from now the Atlantic will come out with a mighty handsome notice of the book, by Howells (which I will send to you,) but the book won’t issue till 2 or 3 w or even 4 weeks later. This notice says the book “gives incomparably the best picture of life in that (the West) region as yet known to fiction.” “The story is a wonderful study of the boy-mind.” “The tale is very dramatically wrought.” “The worthless vagabond, Huck Finn, is entirely delightful throughout.” “Tom Sawyer * * * * was bred to fear God & dread the Sunday-school”—&c &c &c. It’s a jolly good notice.

You can leave out the preface; or alter it so that it will not profess to be a book for youth; or write a new preface & put your own name or initials to it. FixⒶemendation it any way you want to, if as you say, it will be best not to put it forth as a book for youth.2explanatory note

(Before I forget, Ⓐemendation it, let me remark that your 5-per centage is entirely satisfactory to me, if it is to you, no matter which method of publishing we adopt.)

My dear Conway, we borrowed our shape & style of book from England. We exactly copied the size, style, & get-up, of a half a dozen of Cassel, Peter & Galpin’s pretty books.3explanatory note But still, you & Chatto must freely do as you like. If you still do not want to make the book the size of ours & take a set of plates containing the cuts & everything, telegraph thus:

“Twain—Hartford—pictures.”

If you should want

I will then send any & all pictures that can be cut down to your size. Ⓐemendation—& send the original drawings of the rest.

If you should take a notion to have full plates, just telegraph “Plates,” instead of “Pictures.”

Telegraph 20 or 30 words whenever necessary. It is no economy to do business by mail.

Bliss can’t give me price of full plates or pictures either, yet—but says he will make it just as cheap as he possibly can——for me.

Well, I’ll write tomorrow if I find I haven’t finished today.

Ys Ever
S. L. Clemens

Susie sends thanks & a kiss for the book. We all shake hands with you-all across the briny.

Textual Commentary
Previous Publication:

MTLP , 96–97.

Provenance:

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.

Explanatory Notes
1 

Clemens replied to the following letter (CU-MARK):

UCLC32312
2 Pembroke Gardens
                                         Kensington, London W.
                                             March 24 ’76
My dear Clemens,

After a charming voyage, which not even the loss of one blade from our propeller could make longer than 9½ days to Liverpool, I arrived to find my folks all well, and the work to be done quite mountainous. I shall now have some years in which to think of a certain house on the brow of a wooded hill—a beautiful room with three fairies flitting about in it, and guarded by a dragon whom I vainly tried to subdue with a billiard-cue—all as a dream of what is very improbable.

I have had two long sessions with the Routledges, father and son; found them very much opposed to publishing on 10 per cent commission, but finally willing to undertake it in a spirit that did not impress me as enthusiastic enough. I am disinclined to let them have Tom Sawyer. I read the MS of the book on shipboard and feel persuaded that it is the best thing you have done. With an earnest man to take hold of it I feel sure that there is money in it, if not millions. The cave scenes are written with the highest dramatic force. I don’t think it would be doing justice to call it a boy’s book, and think it had better be left to people to form their own conclusions whether it is for young or old. I have had several hours interview with Chatto (of the firm Chatto & Windus) and they are so anxious to get the book, so plainly determined to make it their leading card, that I have resolved that they are the men for our work. Routledge’s ten per cent on the book if sold for five shillings would leave us for each copy 2s7d; Chatto’s ditto leaves us 2s9d. Chatto offers proportionally more on the 2s6d edition. So it seems to me plain which should be selected. There are several other things which incline me to Chatto,—mainly, that I have freedom to examine all of his books & printers accounts.

Both of the publishers & I also believe that the wise course will be to print to begin with an edition with pictures to be sold here at 7s6d, and when that has had its run to bring out a half crown edition. I have telegraphed you to send me electros of the pictures. They ought to arrive here in about 15 days. The type will be set up & waiting for them, it being very important here that the book should appear about the middle or third week in April to catch the great Spring sales. It double-locks your copyright here to have the book appear here a little before it appears in America. And unless you hear from me to the contrary—& provided you have understood my telegram & sent the pictures in electro casts—you may conclude that we shall get it out near April 20–25, in which case May 1 would be a good time for your American appearance.

It will be positively necessary for the book to appear here in a difft shape from the American—(which here is fatally unorthodox) I send you by bookpost a copy of Tom Hood’s Nowhere & North Pole, as an indication of the kind of book we shall have to make here. It will be necessary to pare down some of the initial picture plates to adapt them to this shape, and it will be done with artistic care so as not to impair the figures. In case any particular picture cannot be so safely manipulated we shall either leave it out or reduce it by photography & recarve it. But you may rely on my watching all these details like a hawk. I shall also revise the proof myself after Chatto’s proof-reader.

The printing will go on without respect to the contract as to terms, Chatto having agreed to engage with me on either of the two ways in which the work may be published.

The plan which I proposed to you is that which is called “publishing by commission.” No publisher likes it. I do. But you should understand the implications in England. The book published at 7s6d must be sold to retailers at reduced rates, leaving (after the publisher has secured his 10 per cent.) 4s2d clear for the author,—or just one golden dollar for every copy sold. That is a good deal, but it is reduced by the fact that the author has to foot the bills of production & advertising. Thus the printing of the first 2000 copies of your book (in style of Hood’s sent but twice as thick) will require you to send over to me at once £500. (It is the first step that costs most—composition, stereotyping, and one or two other things not reappearing in second editions.) That 500 pounds would cover cost of 2000 and a good advertise. The printing of 10.000 will cost £1000 (2s for the production of each copy). Of course these are round numbers and inexact. But then by the sale of 10,000 you clear above expenses a thousand pounds (more or less.)—On a 2s6d ed. you would get 1s4d pr copy or £666 for 10,000.

—Now the other plan is the Royalty system. Chatto has made a proposition of this kind more liberal than usual, which is why I feel bound to trouble you with it. He agrees to bear the expense, risk, &c. and pay you for every copy he sells (of the 7s6d book) one shilling and sixpence. In this case you advance no money and for ̭every̭ 10,000 sold you receive £750. On this ‘royalty’ plan when the cheap edition comes out, at 2s6d, you get 3d per copy, or £125 per 10,000 (again paying out nothing.)

These are as fair propositions as have ever been gained by an American author since I have lived in England.

—You see that it amounts to a question of the value of your capital (pecuniary) to you,—whether you will invest & risk £1000 to make £1000, or risk nothing & make £250 less per thousand.

If you like the ‘Royalty’ plan best please telegraph to:—

Hickson
               Smithfield
                   London
                   Royalty

No signature will be needed unless it is compulsory. If no telegram arrives I shall conclude that you have resolved on the Commission plan & will at once send £500 or more to enable me to meet the bills which will have accumulated.

It is now very late in the night, and I am too weary to write any more tonight. I believe I have covered the whole ground, except to add (with a wince) that I think I may be able to serve this book to the extent of 5 per cent unless you think that too much. But I honestly declare that I shall be happy to serve you and any book of yours in any way within my power for nothing.

Tom S must be a success!

Some day more about Tom!!

Give my most hearty & grateful regards to your dear wife—give the little one’s an extra kiss & song for my sake—& the elder the Hood book.

And know me as your friend (more than ever for Tom’s sake)

M D Conway

I addressed my telegram to “Twain” thinking it a more infallible thing indication of the man meant where the fewest words were desirable.

Any telegram addressed Hickson, Smithfield, London, will reach me

Conway’s estimate of the difference in profit between the commission and royalty plans did not include the proceeds from the “cheap edition.” He actually meant to say that Clemens would earn £250 less per 10,000 copies, not “per thousand.” For Conway’s 24 March telegram and Clemens’s reply, see 25 Mar 76 to Conwayclick to open link. In his 24 March letter Conway alluded to: his wife, Ellen, and their children, Eustace, Dana, and Mildred; Olivia, Susy, and Clara Clemens (the “three fairies”); George Routledge and one of his three sons and partners (most probably Robert, who handled the firm’s financial matters, but possibly Edmund or William), Clemens’s current authorized English publishers; and Andrew Chatto and W. E. Windus, who had published Tom Hood’s From Nowhere to the North Pole in 1875, and starting with Tom Sawyer replaced the Routledges as Clemens’s English publishers (see 6 and 7 Jan 76 to PAMclick to open link, n. 3; 26 Feb 76 to Conwayclick to open link, n. 1; , L5 130 n. 3, 480 n. 2, 511 n. 1 bottom, 637 n. 2; Hood 1875).

2 

No alterations were made in Clemens’s preface, which, in both the English and American editions of Tom Sawyer, concluded:

Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account, for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in.

3 

The publishing firm of John Cassell, George W. Petter, and Thomas D. Galpin was founded in 1859. Clemens owned at least three of their books (see HF 2003 , 703 n. 127). Conway later characterized their publications as “2d class things” (6 May 76 to SLC, CU-MARK).

Emendations and Textual Notes
Ⓐ  it. Fix ●  it.— | Fix
Ⓐ  forget,  ●  deletion implied
Ⓐ  size.  ●  deletion implied