american publishing co., publishers of standard works, sold by subscription only. now in press richardson’s new works, personal history of u. s. grant, beyond the mississippi. history of the bible, illustrated. agents wanted.

s. drake, pres’t.                        office american publishing company,
e. bliss, jr., sec’y.                          148 asylum street.
f. e. bliss, treas.

hartford, conn., Feby. 10 186 9.

Sam J. Clemens Esq.

Dear friend, Your favor to Frank recd. I thought as our correspondence has not been extensive, I would write you. Hope you are well & fully recovered from the joint attack of that boil & cold. We are glad to hear of your success West, & of your popularity. (We glean this from the reports of the press) We presume you have had a very busy trip. Hope you are enjoying yourself now at Elmira. Now about the Book. Would say, that we have no proofs as yet to send. We are pushing things now very rapidly however. We are about ready to begin to electrotype. We are filling it with engravings. We had an artist from N. York here 2 or 3 weeks reading Mss & drawing sketches. They are now in hands, of engravers, & we receive first batch of them this week when we can push the electrotyping, rapidly. We think you will be very much pleased with the style in which we are getting it up We are inserting a copy of enclosed in every book we send out & are spreading the report of the Book in all circulars &c &c We anticipate a good sale for it & think we will disappoint you some in the result, we hope agreeably. There will be about 200 engravings in the Book we think, we have 150 now in ready. We have a lot from Beach & use some of yours also. We shall hurry the thing up rapidly as soon as we begin to get engravings, as above.

How long do you propose to be gone to California? And about proofs. It is going to be very hard to get at you with them for the next month. Shall you be here before you go? Wh Will it be necessary for you to read the proofs.? What do you say to our getting a good grammarian & proof reader here to revise, that is read & correct proofs? With a permission on your part, to cut out a line or an unimportant paragraph where needed to make them come out right on pges, we can get along comfortably, as you will not probably want to alter the Mss. By giving your permission to this arrangement, we can expedite business, & be able by time you sale to give you proofs of a good deal of the Books . We shall set agents at work as soon as we can see through & shall devote all our energies to its sale. We have never had a book look better for us, & its author, & we trust you will see that the spring arrangement, has been a good one for you. We are spending a good deal of money on it, more than on any book we ever got out except perhaps Miss, which this will very much resemble. Should be pleased to have you come up & spend a week or two if, you can do so. Write again soon & keep us posted as we very likely shall need to ask you questions, about Mss, frequently, as we electrotype. Also write at once if, you accede to our arrangement as to proof reading &c.

All send respects & c

[enclosure:]