8 May 1872 • Elmira, N.Y. (MS: CtHMTH, UCCL 00745)
j. d. f. slee, anthracite and bituminous coals. 6 baldwin st.
t. w. crane,
I have received F. E. Bliss’s check for $10,562.13, for sales of “Roughing It” first 3 months. Will you please acknowledge (to him) the receipt of the check, & accompany it with the necessary protest?2explanatory note Or you can attackh it to this note & mail to him.
Please preserve the enclosed note.
agents wanted for standard works. office american publishing company,
e. g. hastings, pres’t. no 116 asylum street,
e. bliss, jr., sec’y.
f. e. bliss, treas. hartford, conn., May 1 18 72
Dr Clemens
The sale of “Roughing It” since its issue has been as follows,
In cloth
22,543 cops
copyright 7½%
.26 ¼ =
5,917.53
In Library & clo gt3explanatory note
13,952 cops
copyright 7½%
.30 =
4,185.60
In Half morroco
1176 cops
copyright 7½%
.372 =
441.00
In Full morroco
30 cops
60 =
18.00
The Total I enclose ch for
$10,562.13.
please send me a receipt for same & oblige. A splendid showing I think. Father has been home sick for nearly 2 weeks now but will be better soon I hope, he has worked altogether too hard of late & worn himself out.
Charles Enoch Perkins (1832–1917), a nephew of Harriet Beecher Stowe and of Henry Ward Beecher, began practicing law in Hartford in 1855 with his father, Thomas Clap Perkins (1798–1870), one of the original settlers of Nook Farm. In 1875 Clemens described the younger Perkins, who acted as his attorney until late 1882, as “an old personal friend & the best lawyer in Hartford” (20 Mar 72 to Bliss [draft], n. 2click to open link). Known for his encyclopedic knowledge of civil law and his companionable nature, he also served as president of the Connecticut State Bar Association and of the Hartford County Bar Association (Van Why, 8, 72; MTBus , 204; “C. E. Perkins Dead, Prominent Lawyer for Half Century,” Hartford Courant, 9 Jan 1917, 1, 7).
Clemens wanted Perkins to acknowledge the royalty payment, but under “protest”—that is, without conceding that “half profits” equaled 7½ percent. Clemens’s contention that the two were not equal was the basis for the lawsuit he had asked Perkins to prepare against the American Publishing Company (20 Mar 72 to Bliss [draft], n. 2click to open link; 15 May 72 to OC and MECclick to open link, n. 6). The Blisses must have thought that the amount of this first royalty check was impressive enough to use in promoting the book: on Monday, 6 May, the Hartford Courant published the following item, which was widely reprinted:
“Mark Twain’s” copyright on sales of his new book “Roughing It,” for three months ending May 1, amounts to the handsome sum of $10,562.13, and his publishers, the American Publishing company of this city, forwarded him a check for the whole amount on Saturday. The book is having a good sale, over 40,000 copies having been sold the first three months. (“Brief Mention,” 2)
That is, the “Library Style” leather binding and the “Gilt Edge” cloth binding, both of which sold for $4.00. Clemens’s 7½ percent royalty earned him $.30 per copy on these. The standard cloth binding ($3.50), the half-morocco ($5.00), and the full-morocco ($8.00) bindings earned him $.2625, $.375, and $.60, respectively (publisher’s announcement and advertising leaflet for Roughing It, KU-S).
MS, Mark Twain House, Hartford (CtHMTH) is copy-text for the letter. MS, Francis E. Bliss to SLC, 1 May 72, CtHMTH ( UCLC 31804), is copy-text for the enclosure.
L5 , 83–84.
Clemens’s letter and its enclosure were among ninety-two items found in the files of the Hartford law firm of Howard, Kohn, Sprague and Fitzgerald; they were donated to the Mark Twain House as the Perkins Collection in January 1975 by William W. Sprague. Charles Perkins was a partner in this law firm (then called Perkins and Perkins) until his death in 1917 (“Large File of Twain Letters Discovered in Area Law Firm,” Hartford Courant, 11 Mar 1975).
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.