6 April 1871 • Elmira, N.Y. (MS, Clemens’s copy: CU-MARK, UCCL 00601)
I am glad you agree with me. I begin to think I can get up quite a respectable novel, & I meanⒶemendation to fool away some of my odd hours in the attempt, anyway. You intimate that the present pamphlet don’t give a man his money’s worth, considering the price. I feared that that was so, at first—but you said 40 cents was the cheapest it could be sold at.1explanatory note
Concerning that copyright, Sheldon, I want to protest against the first payment being put off till Aug. 1st. You ought to make me a return the first of June, & another the Ist of Sept. For you to use my money five or six months without my consent & without interest is not exactly fair, & so I hope you will depart from your custom in this instance. It isn’t a matter of sufficient importance, on either side, to worry about or get ruffled over, but my suggestion is entirely just & fair, & so I think yours is the side that ought to yield this time.2explanatory note
Clemens was replying to the following letter from Isaac E. Sheldon (CU-MARK):
Both of Clemens’s earlier letters to Sheldon are lost, but in the first one (22 March) he presumably sent Sheldon a formal contract for the (Burlesque) Autobiography to replace their December 1870 agreement by letter. Sheldon in turn enclosed the following, also dated 4 April:
This memorandum certifies that before publishing Mark Twains pamphlet “Autobiography and First Romance” we agreed to pay him a royalty of six cents on every copy sold. Said agreement is still in force—and we further agree to make a full statement to him of sales every first of August and first of February and accompany the same with the amount of money due him.
On the envelope of Sheldon’s letter Clemens wrote: “Answered Apl. 6. protesting.” Then he added: “Copy of ANSWER ENCLOSED.” (That copy is transcribed here; the document actually sent to Sheldon has not been found.) Clemens’s second letter (3 April) was evidently about the “story” he planned to write. This was probably the book he had earlier hoped to undertake with David Gray, but more recently with Joseph T. Goodman, who had been in Elmira since 24 March and had read and praised part of the manuscript for Roughing It (18 Apr 71 to OC, n. 2click to open link; 30 Apr 71 to OC, n. 5click to open link).
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L4 , 375–76.
see Mark Twain Papers in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.