13 and 15 December 1873 • London, England (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 01004)
Livy darling, I am so tired of lecturing! I enjoy while I am on the stage, because the audience are such elegant Ⓐemendationlooking people & are so heartily responsible responsive Ⓐemendation(heaps of fine carriages & liveries come,) but I don’t take any interest in life during the day. I shall lecture only one week longer in London—closing Dec. 20—& then shall talk in 4 or 5 cities outside. I wish it would carry me home soonerⒶemendation. But that would not be fair to Dolby who long ago promised me to cities in January. I ought to keep on lecturing in London, but the fog nearly broke my heart, & on the foggiest night I lost faith & made Dolby advertised Ⓐemendationthe early close of my season. It was rash & wrong, but I could not help it.1explanatory note Day & night the streets were void of people; all day long the streets lamps burned, yet they only looked like rows of dull embers, half-dead sparks, extending up Portland Place—& you see them only half way up Portland Place, at that. There were but few cabs about. The steeple opposite the parlor window was visible only as a dreamy, unformed, spectral thing. My houses r fell right down till they contained only £12 £14 Ⓐemendation& £17! It Ⓐemendationsaid “It is going to last forever & ever—cut my season short!” But no matter. I would rather loaf & l than lecture, any time.
Why don’t your letters come? It seems an age since I had one. I have been too dreadfully busy to write you, often, but shall write oftener now.
I have been writing after-dinner speeches & a preface for the book. Read proof of the preface this evening. I state some plain facts in it,—so I have appended a postscript to say that Warner isn’t to blame, because he don’t know what I am writing.2explanatory note The Ⓐemendationbook is to be issued here at 25/ & a 2/ edition will be immediately shipped to Canada. The Routledges would not yield up Canada to Bliss—which is very well for Warmner & W Ⓐemendationme, because high-priced books don’t extend one’s reputation fast or far enough. I urge them to get out a cheap edition here just as soon as the libraries will consent.3explanatory note
I have been getting up an elaborate speech to-day (expecting to be called upon, as usual,) to respond to some toast or other at the Lord Mayor’s dinner Tuesday night, after my lecture—I wrote him I could not come till 10 PM) purposely to wring in a word about International CopyrightⒶemendation—but as it is at the end of the Speech I may conclude to cut it, at last.4explanatory note
Preserve the en The present Lord Mayor is an old brick—an old Scotch brick—met him at the great St Andrews dinner.5explanatory note
I love you, darling.
enclosure, on back as folded: 6explanatory note
Preserve all of these letters, Livy, in the green box, Samℓ.
14 Dec 1873
6, kent terrace, regent’s park. n. w.
My dear Sir,
I feel desirous to do something more helpful to your lecture than perhaps the article would be, 7explanatory note and I have therefore written, and inserted in the new number of Punch a strong incitation to the public to make haste & go and see you, & I have put in quotations to attract the eye of the B. P. 8explanatory note I will send you an early copy tomorrow—it will appear on Wednesday & may do good for the brief time you mention it as your intention to remain. 9explanatory note I will also send you my Almanac—Tenniel has done something which I am certain you will admire. 10explanatory note
very sincerely yours
Shirley Brooks
S. L. Clemens Esq
Mrs. Samℓ. L. Clemens | Hartford | Conn in upper left corner: America. | rule on flap: slc postmarked: london • w 7 de 15 73 and new york • dec 2◇ 13 • u.s. notes Ⓐemendation and insufficiently stamped Ⓐemendation and 13
In the early advertisements for Clemens’s lectures, published between 19 November and 7 December, no ending date was mentioned. On 8 and 9 December the notice in the London Daily News included this advisory: “Mr. George Dolby begs to announce that Mark Twain’s visit to England (London and the provinces included) is limited to a short period, important business calling him to America early in January.” On 10 December, the second day of the fog (which cleared on 13 December), the words “Last Week but One” were added. On 11 December the notice stated: “Mr. George Dolby begs to announce that Mark Twain’s Provincial Tour will commence on Monday, Dec. 22, and that his lectures in London will terminate Saturday, Dec. 20. Mark Twain returns to America on Monday, Jan. 12.” This notice ran through 19 December (with one minor change on 15 December: “next” was added after “Monday” and “Saturday”) (advertisements, London Daily News, 19 Nov–19 Dec 73, 4; “Meteorological Reports,” London Times: 10 Dec 73, 7; 11 Dec 73, 6; 12 Dec 73, 4; 13 Dec 73, 7; 15 Dec 73, 7).
The preface is reproduced in Preface to the Routledge Gilded Age click to open link. It contains no postscript exonerating Warner.
It was customary for publishers to sell a book at a discounted price to lending libraries when they agreed to purchase a large quantity, and to keep the price to the public high to encourage borrowing.
The economics of Victorian book production, especially of fiction, was much influenced by the large lending libraries, and there is no doubt either that they increased the reputations of many authors by widening the audience they reached. The best-known library was of course Mudie’s, founded in 1842, and Mudie’s order alone for a single title could, if the author were well-known, run into four figures. . . . The three-decker novels that they preferred were expensive, and obviously it was not in the interest either of the publisher or of the libraries to jeopardise the circulation of these or indeed of any library title by the premature issue of a cheap edition. (Welland, 43)
(For a full discussion of the relationship between publishers and lending libraries, see Griest, 58–86.) Routledge printed 500 copies of the 25s. 6d. edition in December, and the following month printed 4,000 copies of a 2s. edition. No further reprintings were required until 1877. Routledge retained his contractual right to the Canadian market, and apparently sold his cheap edition there, with-holding it from the English market until June 1874 (Routledge Ledger Book 4:765, Routledge; Contract for the Routledge Gilded Age click to open link; “New Works Published from June 1 to 15,” Publishers’ Circular 37 16 June 74: 391; “The Times Column of New Books and New Editions,” London Times, 9 June 74, 14; French, 264, mistakenly states that the edition advertised in June 1874 cost 12s.).
Clemens’s letter accepting the lord mayor’s invitation for dinner on 16 December is not known to survive, but it elicited the following response (CU-MARK):
Clemens may have considered enclosing this note in the present letter (see the cancellation in the next paragraph) but refrained, since it would not easily fit in the envelope with the letter he evidently did enclose (see note 6). No text of Clemens’s speech has been found, nor has his attendance at the dinner been confirmed.
Andrew Lusk (1810–1909), elected lord mayor on 29 September 1873, had presided at the dinner of the Scottish Corporation of London on 1 December (see 28 Nov 73 to Fitzgibbon, n. 2click to open link). Lusk was born in Ayrshire, Scotland. In about 1835 he founded, with his brother, a wholesale grocery business in Greenock, whose success enabled him to open a similar business in London in 1840. He was highly active in city politics, serving as councilman, alderman, sheriff, and member of Parliament for Finsbury (1865–85), a large London constituency.
Not only did Clemens put twice the usual amount of postage on this letter (six instead of three pence), it was assessed a thirteen-cent postage-due fee at New York, indicating that it must have contained an enclosure. The 15 December postmark suggests that a likely enclosure was this 14 December letter from Brooks: since 14 December was a Sunday, when there were no postal deliveries, Clemens could not have received Brooks’s letter before 15 December. Presumably, he immediately inscribed and enclosed it with his letter to Olivia.
The British Public (Partridge, 22).
Brooks inserted the following announcement in the 20 December issue, which was evidently available for sale by Wednesday, 17 December, three days before Clemens’s last London appearance:
“TWAIN CAN DO ’T.”
Antony and Cleopatra.
Again we have, as Jacques Pierre observes in the Midsummer Night’s Dream,
“Twain, at large discourse;”
but, as the same eminent Frenchman says in the Winter’s Tale, ‘twill be only a case of
“Mark, a little while.”
In fact, the distinguished humorist’s stay is to be so brief that if we were not now upon such extraordinary sweet terms with America, we should write unpleasantly about such autoschediastic treatment of us. But for a few times Mr. Mark Twain is to be visible to the naked eye, (fog permitting) in Hanover Square, and because his visit is so short, Mr. Punch, who extracts something good out of anything objectionable, performs the philanthropic act of hereby encouraging and inciting his friends to go and hear Mr. Twain’s new lecture. (Punch 65:248)
Punch’s Almanack for 1874, issued on 18 December 1873, contained one illustration signed with John Tenniel’s distinctive monogram; it is reproduced on the next page. Tenniel (1820–1914) was a largely self-taught painter and illustrator. He had drawn illustrations for Punch since late 1850, and by the mid-1860s was its chief cartoonist. In recognition of his talent he was knighted in 1893. Professing no political opinions of his own, he nevertheless “dignified the political cartoon into a classic composition, and has raised the art of politico-humorous draughtsmanship from the relative position of the lampoon to that of polished satire” (Spielmann, 461–71; Wood, 468). Tenniel’s illustrations for Alice in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass (1871) remain his best-known works.
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK), is copy-text for the letter and envelope. MS, Shirley Brooks to SLC, 14 Dec 73, CU-MARK ( UCLC 31907), is copy-text for the enclosure.
L5 , 512–17; LLMT , 364, brief paraphrase.
see Samossoud Collection (letter) and Mark Twain Papers (enclosure) in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.