9–12 July 1872 • New Saybrook, Conn. (MS: MoPeS, UCCL 00767)
This is from my sister, Mrs. Ⓐemendation P.A. Moffett. Will you attend to it, Frank.?
The former bill was $4.15. How was that?
p. a. moffett.
My dear Brother:
Sammy succeeded in getting only three subscribers before he left home. It seems the Dunkirk agent did canvass this village but not very thoroughly, so there is still a chance for Sammy. He thinks he can get more names when he comes back. I rec’d a letter from Mrs. Beecher to-day, telling me of his safe arrival Saturday morning about six o’clock. 1explanatory note
He filled up one of the publisher’s blanks before he left and intended writing to them himself but was so busy celebrating the 4th he could not find time. I thought I would bother you this time and next time he could write directly to them. I cannot send the money because I do not know how much will be deducted from the regular price of the books. I suppose they will be willing to collect from the express company as they did before. 2explanatory note
I wish you and Livy would write and let us know how 3explanatory note
I have a cold in my head. Ma and Annie are as well as usual.
letter docketed: S. Clemens | July 8th 72.
The reason for eleven-year-old Samuel Moffett’s trip has not been discovered, nor has Mrs. Beecher been identified.
Sammy was canvassing for the American Publishing Company, selling books (almost certainly Roughing It) to subscribers on the basis of a prospectus. He then ordered the books from the company at a discount that at this time was 50 percent of the “regular” (retail) price. Pamela was apparently submitting an order for three books on Sammy’s behalf, and expected him to pay as he had done with his earlier order (which had totaled $4.15), by giving the money to the express company upon delivery. The American Publishing Company would then “collect from the express company.” When Sammy distributed the books, his subscribers would pay him the full retail price. Clemens’s puzzlement over the “former bill” of $4.15 was understandable: that total was not possible if Sammy ordered one or two books at a 50 percent discount off the four possible retail prices (8 May 72 to Perkins, n. 3click to open link; L4 , 253 n. 2; Hill 1964, 5–6, 178–79; Lehmann-Haupt, 251–52; Facts, 149; “Conditions,” Roughing It prospectus, CU-MARK; HF, 844).
Pamela’s letter breaks off abruptly at this point, with both sides of one leaf covered (the remaining sentences are a postscript written along the margin of the first page). Clemens wrote his message at the top of the first page and forwarded the letter to Frank Bliss, probably on 9 or 10 July, but certainly by 12 July, when Olivia wrote to Mollie Clemens, “I enclose you part of Pamela’s letter, Mr Clemens tore off the rest and sent it to Mr Bliss as it was on business, so this is all that I have seen of the letter” (CU-MARK). The balance of Pamela’s letter has not been found.
MS, Saint Mary’s Seminary, Perryville, Missouri (MoPeS).
L5 , 114–115.
donated to MoPeS before 1955 by Estelle Doheny.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.