Mr. Langdon just escapes being a railway magnate—Mr. Clemens’s dealings with Bliss, the publisher.
But I am wandering far from Susy’sⒶapparatus note BiographyⒶapparatus note. I remember that I was about to explain a remark which I had been making about Susy’sⒶapparatus note grandfather Langdon having just barely escaped once the good luck—or the bad luck—of becoming a great railway magnate. The incident has interest for me for more than one reason. Its details came to my knowledge in a chance way in [begin page 370] a conversation which I had with my father-in-law when I was arranging a contract with my publisher for “Roughing It,” my second book. I told him the publisher had arrived from Hartford, and would come to the house in the afternoon to discuss the contract and complete it with the signatures. I said I was going to require half the profits over the essential costs of manufacture. He asked if that arrangement would be perfectly fair to both parties, and said it was neither good business nor good morals to make contracts which gave to one side the advantage. I said that the terms which I was proposing were fair to both parties. Then Mr. Langdon after a musing silence said, with something like a reminiscent sorrow in his tone,
“WhenⒶapparatus note you and the publisher shall have gotten the contract framed to suit you both and no doubts about it are left in your minds, sign it—sign it to-day, don’t wait till to-morrow.”
It transpired that he had acquired this wisdom which he was giving meⒶapparatus note gratis, at considerable expense. He had acquired it twenty years earlier, or thereabouts, at the Astor House in New York, where he and a dozen other rising and able business men were gathered together to secure a certain railroad which promised to be a good propertyⒶapparatus note by and by, if properly developed and wisely managed. This was the Lehigh Valley railroad. There were a number of conflicting interests to be reconciled before the deal could be consummated. The men labored over these things the whole afternoon, in a private parlor of that hotel. They dined, then reassembled and continued their labors until after two in the morning. Then they shook hands all around in great joy and enthusiasm, for they had achieved success, and had drawn a contract in the rough which was ready for the signatures. The signing was about to begin; one of the men sat at the table with his pen poised over the fateful document, when somebody said “Oh, we are tired to death. There is no use in continuing this torture any longer.Ⓐapparatus note Everything’s satisfactory; let’sⒶapparatus note sign in the morning.” All assented, and that pen was laid aside.
Mr. Langdon said “We got five or ten minutes’Ⓐapparatus note additional sleep that night, by that postponement,Ⓐapparatus note but it cost us several millions apiece, and it was a fancy price to pay. If we had paid out of our existing means, and the price had been a single million apiece, we should have had to sit up, for there wasn’t a man among us who could have met the obligation completely. The contract was never signed. We had traded a Bank of England for ten minutes’Ⓐapparatus note extra sleep—a very small sleep, an apparently unimportant sleep, but it has kept us tired ever since. When you’ve got your contract right, this afternoon, sign it.”
I followed that advice. It was thirty-five years ago, but it has kept me tired ever since. I was dealing with the salaried manager of the American Publishing Company of Hartford, E. Bliss, junior,Ⓐapparatus note a Yankee of the Yankees. I will tell about this episode in a later chapterⒺexplanatory note. He was a tall, lean, skinny, yellow, toothless, bald-headed, rat-eyed professional liar and scoundrel. I told him my terms. He suggested that they were a little high. I showed him letters which I had received from various reputable firms, offering me this rate. I also showed him a letter from perhaps the best firm in America offering me three-fourths of the profits above cost of manufacture. I showed him still another letter from a far better firm than his own, offering me the whole of the profits and saying it would be content with what they could get out of the book as an advertisementⒺexplanatory note. I said I did not care to consider these offers, and that I should prefer to remain where my success had been accomplished for me, but that I must insist upon half profits.
[begin page 371]Bliss then said that on the whole perhaps my requirement was fair—sufficiently fair, at any rate, although there was argument that as his house had found me penniless and unknown, and had created me, so to speak, this service ought to be considered and compensated in the contract. It did not occur to me to remind him of a conversation which we had had nine months after the publication of “The Innocents Abroad,” in which he had effusively thanked me for saving that publishing-house’s life—a talk in which he had said that when my book was issued the Company’s stock couldn’t be given away, but at the end of nine months the stock had paid three 20 per centⒶapparatus note dividends; cleared the Company of debt; was quoted at two hundred, and was not purchasable even at that gilded rate. I forgot to mention—for I didn’t know it—that my 5 per centⒶapparatus note royalty on that book represented only a fifth of the book’s profits, and that for each dollar paid me by the Company, the Company had made four.
Bliss said he would go to the hotel and draw up the contract in accordance with the agreed terms. When he brought the contract, it had nothing in it about half profitsⒺexplanatory note. It was a royalty again—7½ per centⒶapparatus note this time. I said that that was not what we had agreed upon. He said that in so many words it wasn’t, but that in fact the terms were still better for me than half profits, because that up to a sale of one hundred thousand copies my profit on the book would be some trifle more than half, and that only on a sale of two hundred thousand copies would the Company get back that advantage.
I asked him if he was telling me the strict truth. He said he was. I asked him if he could hold up his hand and make oath that what he had said was absolutely true. He said he could. I asked him to put up his hand, which he did, and I swore him.
He published that book and the next one, at 7½ per cent royalty. He published the next two at 10 per centⒺexplanatory note. But when I came back from Europe bringing the manuscriptⒶapparatus note of still another book—“A Tramp Abroad,” at the end of 1879—the doubts which had been lingering in my mind for all these years took the form of almost the conviction that this animal had been swindling me all the while, and I said that this time the words “half profits above cost of manufacture” must go into the contract or I would carry the book elsewhere—that I was tired of the royalty terms and believed it was a swindle upon me.
He accepted this proposition with effusion, and came back to my house the next day with that kind of contract. I saw that it did not mention the American Publishing Company, but only E. Bliss, juniorⒶapparatus note. Apparently I was dealing solely with him. I inquired. He said “Yes,” that it was a mean crowd, an ungrateful crowd; that it would have lost me long ago if it had not been for him; yet that it was in no sufficient degree grateful for this service, although it knew quite well that I was the sole source of its prosperities and even of its bread and butter. He said the Company had been threatening to reduce his salary; that he wanted to leave and set up for himself; and that he wanted nothing further to do with those skinflints.
The idea pleased me, for I detested those people myself, and was quite willing to leave them. So we signed the contract.
That rascal told me afterward that he took that contract and shook it in the face of the Board of Directors and said,Ⓐapparatus note
“I’ll sell it to you for three-fourths of the profits above cost of manufacture. My salary must [begin page 372] be continued at the present rate; my son’s salary must be continued at the present rate, also. Those are the terms. Take them or leave themⒺexplanatory note.”
It could be that this was true. If it was true it was without doubt the only time during Bliss’s sixty years that he opened his mouth without a lie escaping through the gaps in his teeth. I never heard him tell the truth, so far as I can remember. He was a most repulsive creature. When he was after dollars he showed the intense earnestness and eagerness of a circular-saw. In a small, mean, peanut-stand fashion, he was sharp and shrewd. But above that level he was destitute of intelligence; his brain was a loblolly, and he had the gibbering laugh of an idiot. It is my belief that Bliss never did an honest thing in his life, when he had a chance to do a dishonest one. I have had contact with several conspicuously mean men, but they were noble compared to this bastard monkey.
Bliss escaped me, and got into his grave a month or two before the first statement of account was due on “A Tramp Abroad.” When the statement was presented of course it was a revelation. I saw that through those royalty deceptions, Bliss had been robbing me ever since the day that I had signed the 7½ per centⒶapparatus note contract for “Roughing It.” I was present, as a partner in the contract, when that statement was laid before the Board of Directors in the house of Mr. Newton CaseⒺexplanatory note, in Hartford.
I denounced Bliss, and said that the Board must have known of these swindles, and was an accessory to them after the fact. But they denied it.
Now was my time to do a wise thing, for once in my life. But of course I did a foolish thing instead of it, old habits being hard to break. I ought to have continued with that Company and squeezed it. I ought to have made my terms five-sixths of the profits and continued the squeeze to this day. The Company would have been obliged to endure it, and I should have gotten my due. But I severed our relations, in a fine large leather-headed passion, and carried “The Prince and the Pauper” to J. R. Osgood, who was the loveliest man in the world, and the most incapable publisher. All I got out of that book was seventeen thousand dollars. But he thought he could do better next time. So I gave him “Old Times on the Mississippi,”Ⓔexplanatory note but said I should prefer that he make the book at my expense and sell it at a royalty to be paid by me to him. When he had finished making the plates and printing and binding the first edition, these industries of his had cost me fifty-six thousand dollarsⒺexplanatory note, and I was becoming uncomfortable through the monotony of signing checks. Osgood botched it again, dear good soul. I think my profit on that book was only thirty thousand dollars. It may have been more, but it is long ago and I can give only my impression.
I made still one more experiment outside of my proper line. I brought to New York Charles L. Webster, a young relative of mine by marriage, and with him to act as clerk and manager I published “Huckleberry Finn” myself. It was a little book; nothing much was to be expected from it pecuniarily—but at the end of three months after its publication, Webster handed me the statement of results and a check for fifty-four thousand five hundred dollarsⒺexplanatory note. This persuaded me that as a publisher I was not altogether a failure.
E. Bliss, junior . . . a later chapter] Elisha P. Bliss, Jr. (1821–80), was born in Massachusetts. He worked in the dry goods business until becoming secretary of the American Publishing Company of Hartford (1867–70, 1871–73), and then its president (1870, 1873–80). During his tenure this subscription house published all of Clemens’s major books from The Innocents Abroad (1869) to A Tramp Abroad (1880). For the “later chapter” see the Autobiographical Dictation of 23 May 1906 (2 Dec 1867 to Bliss, L2, 120 n. 1; Hill 1964, 15).
I told him my terms . . . I showed him letters . . . what they could get out of the book as an advertisement] Clemens’s extant correspondence for that time does not support his contention here that other firms offered him half profits, or more. When Bliss visited Clemens at Elmira in mid-July 1870 to discuss terms for the publication of Roughing It, Clemens claimed only to have been offered “ten per cent” by an unnamed publisher (2 Aug 1870 to Bliss, L4, 179–80; see RI 1993, 806–8).
contract . . . had nothing in it about half profits] See “A Call with W. D. Howells on General Grant,” note at 71.36–37.
He published that book . . . the next two at 10 per cent] Clemens recounted his royalty arrangements correctly, allowing for a slight shuffling of the books’ publication order. By “that book and the next one” he meant Roughing It (1872) and Mark Twain’s Sketches, New and Old (1875c); by “the next two” he meant The Gilded Age (1873–74, 10 percent shared with coauthor Charles Dudley Warner) and Tom Sawyer (1876, 10 percent) ( RI 1993, 806–8; ET&S1, 435–36; “Contract for the American Publishing Company Gilded Age,” L5, 635–36; royalty statement in Scrapbook 10:77, CU-MARK).
he wanted to leave and set up for himself . . . we signed the contract . . . Those are the terms. Take them or leave them] Although in 1879 Elisha Bliss, Jr., did contemplate leaving the American Publishing Company “by & by,” it was actually Francis (Frank) Bliss (1843–1915), Elisha’s son and the treasurer of the company, who resigned and established his own subscription house (Bliss to SLC, 13 Feb 1879, CU-MARK). Before leaving for Europe in 1878, Clemens had signed a contract with Frank—without Elisha’s knowledge—for a proposed travel book (ultimately A Tramp Abroad, published in 1880), stipulating a royalty of 10 percent. Frank agreed to keep detailed records of his costs in order to calculate the “gross profits,” and “if at the end of the first year one half of said gross profits exceeds the amount of said royalty for said year,” Clemens was to receive “the amount of such excess in addition to said royalty” (contract dated 8 Mar 1878, CU-MARK). Frank Bliss’s company did not thrive, however, and in November 1879, when the book was in production, Clemens agreed to transfer the contract to the American Publishing Company. A year later he claimed that “as a consideration for the book,” Elisha Bliss “required them to allow him one-half of the company’s entire profits for 3 years!—& they were exceedingly glad to comply. For it saved the company’s life & set them high on their pins & free of debt” (24 Oct 1880 to OC, Letters 1876–1880 ; Hill 1964, 127–32, 142–43; for a somewhat different account see AD, 23 May 1906).
Newton Case] Case, a Hartford neighbor, was part owner of a printing and publishing establishment—the Case, Lockwood and Brainard Company—as well as a director of the American Publishing Company ( N&J3, 203 n. 67, 456 n. 161).
J. R. Osgood . . . “Old Times on the Mississippi,”] James R. Osgood first solicited a publication in 1872 from Clemens, who could not comply because of his prior contracts with the American Publishing Company. Osgood was likewise unable to publish Sketches, New and Old, and had to settle for the little book A True Story, and the Recent Carnival of Crime (SLC 1877a). For his part, Clemens was eager for the prestige of Osgood’s imprint, and published The Prince and the Pauper with him in 1881—requiring, however, that it be sold by subscription, an approach entirely unfamiliar to Osgood. The next year Osgood issued The Stolen White Elephant, Etc. He traveled with Clemens down the Mississippi, and in 1883 published the book that resulted from that trip, Life on the Mississippi (31 Mar 1872 to Osgood, L5, 72–73 nn. 2–3; ET&S1, 619–20; P&P, 9–11).
these industries of his had cost me fifty-six thousand dollars] Clemens wrote to Osgood on 21 December 1883, “The Prince & Pauper & the Mississippi are the only books of mine which have ever failed. The first failure was not unbearable—but this second one is so nearly so that it is not a calming subject for me to talk upon. I am out $50,000 on this last book—that is to say, the sale which should have been 80,000 . . . is only 30,000” (21 Dec 1883 to Osgood, MH-H, in MTLP, 164). The total cost of the plates, paper, and binding of Life on the Mississippi came to $39,458.78 by Osgood’s mid-March 1884 account. Clemens also paid the cost of renting Osgood’s New York office during this period. His figure of “fifty-six thousand dollars” may include that expense as well (10 Mar 1884 to Webster, CU-MARK; SLC notes on handwritten sheet of printing costs for Life on the Mississippi, NPV).
check for fifty-four thousand five hundred dollars] Clemens’s figure is not inconsistent with the high sales figures for Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Less than three months after publication, it had sold fifty-one thousand copies at prices ranging from $2.75 to $5.50 a volume (Webster to Moffett, 6 May 1885, CU-MARK; HF 2003, 660–61).
Source documents.
TS1 (incomplete) Typescript, leaves numbered 349–51 (352–58 are missing), made from Hobby’s notes and revised: ‘Wednesday . . . thirty-five years’ (369 title–370.31).TS2 Typescript, leaves numbered 490–99, made from the revised TS1.
The pages missing from TS1 were discarded by Paine when he edited the dictation for MTA. Hobby incorporated the revisions that Clemens made on TS1 into TS2, and they were incorporated into TS4 as well. TS4 was similarly mutilated, however, having several words fewer than TS2 (it ends at ‘sign it.” ’ [370.30]). TS4 has no authority for the text that survives in TS1; where both TS1 and TS4 are missing, TS2 is the unique source.
Paine reviewed TS2, marking it for possible publication in the NAR. He suggested omitting the text from ‘I told’ to the end, retaining only part of one paragraph, but Clemens decided that none of it was ‘usable’.
Marginal Notes on TS2 Concerning Publication in the NAR