23 January 1885 • 2nd of 3 • St. Paul, Minn. (MS: NPV, UCCL 10903)
P. S. Do you watch Pond’s accounts pretty carefully? You know we paid him $300 just about the time I started out the second time; well, I had only reached Indianapolis when there came another expensesⒶemendation—bill for $1600. I didn’t doubt its correctness, still it was a rouser.
You offered Osgood 2 per cent royalty on the “Library?” That would amount to about $3000 on 50,000 copies. Why didn’t you offer him the $3000 cash? He’d take that, every time.
My only objection is, that if the publisher may be sued for damages for using copyrighted matter without obtaining consent—in which case Osgood would have to pay 30 per cent of such damage; whereas if you publish it I must pay all the damages.
Not much danger of such a suit, but of course there is some. It might be well to buy him out if he will throw in my other books.
MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Special Collections, NPV.
MTBus, 294–95.