4 July 1876 • Elmira, N.Y. (MS, in pencil: NNC, UCCL 01347)
(SUPERSEDED)
I fear that the book & the newspaper notice have miscarried. They have not arrived at Hartford or here.1explanatory note
Has Bliss shipped the pictures to you yet? I can’t find out from him.2explanatory note
Extracts from Sawyer keep appearing in N. Y.Ⓐemendation Evening Post—don’t know where they get them.3explanatory note
My American copyright is perfect.4explanatory note
No, I don’t think we shall want to use a cheap edition over here, at all. Our money lies wholly in the high-priced edition.
Yrs in haste (for dinner)
On 6 May Conway promised to send Clemens the “earliest” copy of the English edition of Tom Sawyer (see 27 May 76 to Conwayclick to open link, n. 1). The book was published on 9 June. Soon after, in a letter that does not survive, Conway must have notified Clemens that a copy had been mailed, along with a first review (Johnson 1935, 29).
For Bliss’s explanation of his unresponsiveness, see 22 July 76 to Blissclick to open link, n. 1. The American Publishing Company did not send the plates of the Tom Sawyer illustrations to Conway until 7 July 1876, nearly a month after publication of the first English edition. Although an illustrated edition reportedly was ready by 9 December, no such edition has been confirmed. In 1885, however, Chatto and Windus brought out a “new edition” incorporating most of True Williams’s illustrations from the American first edition ( BAL , 2:3367; TS 1980, 20, 503).
The New York Evening Post of 28 June reprinted the fence-painting episode from chapter 2 of the English edition of Tom Sawyer. No other extracts have been identified in the Evening Post. For the paper’s source, see 24 July 76 to Conwayclick to open link, n. 1.
See 16 Apr 76 to Conwayclick to open link, n. 2.
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.