Webb states that “Jumping Frog” has been favorably received but that he has made nothing on it because of dishonesty of American News CompanyⒶtextual note—Mr. Clemens makes contract with American Publishing CompanyⒶtextual note for “The Innocents Abroad” and suppresses the publication of “Jumping Frog” by Webb—Afterwards discovers from the American News CompanyⒶtextual note that Webb had swindled him—Terms of contract with Bliss for “Roughing It” and “A Tramp Abroad.”
But I must go back to Webb. When I got back from the Quaker City Ⓐtextual note ExcursionⒶtextual note, in November 1867, Webb told me that the “Jumping Frog” book had been favorably received by the press and that he believed it had sold fairly well, but that he had found it impossible to get a statement of account from the American News Company. He said the book had been something of a disaster to him, since he had manufactured it with his own private funds and was now not able to get any of the money back because of the dishonest and dodging ways of the News Company.
I was very sincerely sorry for Webb; sorry that he had lost money by befriending me; also, in some degree sorry that he was not able to pay me my royalties.
I made my contract for “The Innocents Abroad” with the American Publishing Company. Then, after two or three months had gone by, it occurred to me that perhaps I was violating that contract, there being a clause in it forbidding me to publish books with any other firmⒺexplanatory note during a term of a year or so. Of course that clause could not cover a book which had been published before the contract was made; anybody else would have known that. But I didn’t know it, for I was not in the habit of knowing anything that was valuable; and I was also not in the habit of asking other people for information. It was my ignorant opinion that I was violating the Bliss contract, and that I was in honor bound to suppress the “Jumping Frog” book and take it permanently out of print. So I went to Webb with the matter. He was willing to accommodate me upon these terms: that I should surrender to him such royalties as might be due me; that I should also surrender to him, free of royalty,Ⓐtextual note all bound and unbound copies which might be in the News Company’s hands; also that I should hand him eight hundred dollars cashⒺexplanatory note; also that he should superintend the breaking up of the plates of the book, and for that service should receive such bounty as the type founders should pay for the broken plates as old type-metal. Type-metalⒶtextual note was worth nine cents a pound, and the weight of the plates was about forty pounds. One may perceive by these details that Webb had some talent as a trader.
[begin page 50]After this Webb passed out of the field of my vision for a long time. But meantime chance threw me in the way of the manager of the American News Company, and I asked him about Webb’s difficulties with the concern and how they had come about. He said he didn’t know of any difficulties. I then explained to him that Webb had never been able to collect anything from the Company. InⒶtextual note turn, he explained to me that my explanation was not sound. He said the Company had always furnished statements to Webb, at the usual intervals, and had accompanied them with the Company’s check to date. By his invitation, I went with him to his office, and by his books and accounts he proved to me that what he had said was true. Webb had collected his dues and mine, regularly, from the beginning, and had pocketed the money. At the time that Webb and I had settled,Ⓐtextual note he was owing me six hundred dollars on royalties. The bound and unbound “Jumping Frogs” which he had inherited from me at that time had since been sold,Ⓐtextual note and the result had gone into his pocket—part of it being six hundred more that should have come to me on royaltiesⒺexplanatory note.
To sum up, I was now an author; I was an author with some little trifle of reputation; I was an author who had published a book; I was an author who had not become rich through that publication; I was an author whose first book had cost him twelve hundred dollars in unreceived royalties, eight hundred dollars in blood money, and three dollars and sixty cents smouched from old type-metal. I was resolved, from that moment, that I would not publish with Webb any more—unless I could borrow money enough to support the luxury.
By and by, when I became notorious through the publication of “The Innocents Abroad,”Ⓔexplanatory note Webb was able to satisfy the public—first,Ⓐtextual note that he had discovered me; later, that he had created me. It was quite generally conceded that I was a valuable asset to the American nation and to the great ranks of literature; also that for the acquisition of this asset a deep debt of gratitude was due from the nation and the ranks—to Webb.
By and by Webb and his high service were forgotten. Then Bliss, and the American Publishing Company,Ⓐtextual note came forward and established the fact that they had discovered me; later, that they had created me; therefore that some more gratitude was due. In the course of time there were still other claimants for these great services. They sprang up in California, Nevada, and around generally, and I came at last to believe that I had been more multitudinously discovered and created than any other animal that had ever issued from the Deity’s hands.
Webb believed that he was a literary person. He might have gotten this superstition accepted by the world if he had not extinguished it by publishing his things. They gave him away. His prose was enchantingly puerile; his poetry was not anyⒶtextual note better; yet he kept on grinding out his commonplaces at intervals until he died, two years ago, of over-cerebration. He was a poor sort of a creature, and by nature and training a fraud. As a liar he was well enough, and had some success but no distinction, because he was a contemporary of Elisha Bliss and when it came to lying Bliss could overshadow and blot out a whole continent of Webbs, like a total eclipse.
About 1872 I wrote another book, “Roughing It.”Ⓔexplanatory note I had published “The Innocents” [begin page 51] on a 5 per centⒶtextual note royalty, which would amount to about twenty-twoⒶtextual note cents per volume. Proposals were coming in now from several other good houses. One offered 15 per centⒶtextual note royalty; another offered to give me all Ⓐtextual note of the profits and be content with the advertisement which the book would furnish the house. I sent for Bliss,Ⓐtextual note and he came to Elmira. If I had known as much about book publishing then as I know now,Ⓐtextual note I would have required of Bliss 75 or 80 per centⒶtextual note of the profits above cost of manufacture, and this would have been fair and just. But I knew nothing about the business and had been too indolent to try to learn anything about it. I told Bliss I did not wish to leave his corporation, and that I did not want extravagant terms. I said I thought I ought to have half the profit above cost of manufacture, and he said with enthusiasm that that was exactly right, exactly right. He went to his hotel and drew the contract and brought it to the house in the afternoon. I found a difficulty in it. It did not name “half profits,”Ⓐtextual note but named a 7½Ⓐtextual note per centⒶtextual note royalty instead. I asked him to explain that. I said that that was not the understanding. He said “No, it wasn’t,” but that he had put in a royalty to simplify the matter—that 7½ per cent royalty represented fully half the profit and a little more, up to a sale of aⒶtextual note hundred thousand copies; that after that,Ⓐtextual note the Publishing Company’s half would be a shade superior to mine.
I was a little doubtful, a little suspicious, and asked him if he could swear to that. He promptly put up his hand and made oath to it, exactly repeating the words which he had just used.
It took me nine or ten years to find out that that was a false oath, and that 7½ per centⒶtextual note did not represent one-fourth of the profits. But in the meantime I had published several books with Bliss on 7½ and 10 per centⒶtextual note royalties, and of course had been handsomely swindled on all of them.
In 1879 I came home from Europe with a book ready for the press—“A Tramp Abroad.” I sent for Bliss and he came out to the house to discuss the book. I said that I was not satisfied about those royalties,Ⓐtextual note and that I did not believe in their “half profitⒶtextual note” pretenses; that this time he must put the “half profitⒶtextual note” in the contract and make no mention of royalties—otherwise I would take the book elsewhere. He said he was perfectly willing to put it in,Ⓐtextual note for it was right and just, and that if his directors opposed it and found fault with it he would withdraw from the concern and publish the book himself—fine talk, but I knew that he was master in that concern and that it would have to accept any contract that had been signed by him. This contract lay there on the billiard table with his signature attached to it. He had ridden his directors rough-shod ever since theⒶtextual note days of “The Innocents Abroad,”Ⓐtextual note and more than once he had told me that he had made his directors do things which they hadn’t wanted to do,Ⓐtextual note with the threat that if they did not comply he would leave the Company’s service and take me along with him.
I don’t know how a grown person could ever be soⒶtextual note simple and innocent as I was in those days. It ought to have occurred to me that a man who could talk like that must either be a fool or convinced that I was one. However,Ⓐtextual note I was the one. And so,Ⓐtextual note even very simple and rudimentary wisdoms were not likely to find their way into my head.
I reminded him that his Company would not be likely to make any trouble about [begin page 52] a contract which had been signed by him. Then, with one of his toothless smiles, he pointed out a detail which I had overlooked, to wit: the contract was with Elisha Bliss,Ⓐtextual note as a private individual, and the American Publishing Company was not mentioned in it.
He told me afterward that he took the contract to the directors and said that he would turn it over to the Company for one-fourth of the profits of the book together with an increase of salary for himself and for Frank, his son, and that if these terms were not satisfactory he would leave the Company and publish the book himself—whereupon the directors granted his demands and took the contract. The fact that Bliss told me these things with his own mouth is unassailable evidence that they were not true. Six weeks before the book issued from the press Bliss told the truth once,Ⓐtextual note to see how it would taste,Ⓐtextual note but it overstrained him and he died.
When the book had been out three months there was an annual meeting of the stockholdersⒶtextual note of the Company and I was present, as a half-partner in the book. The meeting was held in the house of a neighbor of mine, Newton CaseⒺexplanatory note, a director in the Company from the beginning. A statement of the Company’s business was read, and to me it was a revelation. Sixty-four thousand copies of the book had been sold, and my half of the profit was thirty-two thousand dollarsⒺexplanatory note. In 1872 Bliss had made out to me that 7½ per centⒶtextual note royalty—some trifle over twenty cents a copy—represented one-half of the profits, whereas at that earlier day it hardly represented a sixth of the profits. Times were not so good now, yet it took all of fifty centsⒶtextual note a copy to represent half.
Well, Bliss was dead and I couldn’t settle with him for his ten years of swindlings. He has been dead a quarter of a century now. My bitterness against him has faded away and disappeared. I feel only compassion for him, and if I could send him a fan I would.
When the balance sheets exposed to me the rascalities which I had been suffering at the hands of the American Publishing Company I stood up and delivered a lecture to Newton Case and the rest of the conspirators——Ⓐtextual note
I made my contract for “The Innocents Abroad” . . . forbidding me to publish books with any other firm] The contract for The Innocents Abroad, drawn up by Elisha Bliss and signed on 16 October 1868, contains no such exclusivity clause (“Contract for The Innocents Abroad,” L2, 421–22). The contract for Roughing It, however, made nearly two years later, stipulated that Clemens was “not to write . . . any other book unless for said company during the preparation & sale of said manuscript & book” (“Contract for Roughing It,” L4, 565–66).
that I should surrender to him such royalties as might be due me . . . eight hundred dollars cash] In late 1869 Clemens considered “prosecuting Webb in the N. Y. Courts” for an unspecified grievance involving the book; he hoped that Webb would “yield up the copyright & plates of the Jumping Frog, if I let him off from paying me money. Then I shall break up those plates” (22 Jan 1870 to Bliss, L4, 34, 35 n. 5). He decided against legal action, however, and negotiated a settlement with Webb a year later. In a letter of 22 December 1870 to Bliss he said, “I bought my Jumping Frog from Webb—gave him what he owed me ($60000,), and $800 cash, & 300 remaining copies of the book, & also took $128 worth of unprinted paper off his hands.” The payment of $600 evidently represented a 10 percent royalty on 4,000 books: four days later he admitted that he had “fully expected the ‘Jumping Frog’ to sell 50,000 copies & it only sold 4,000.” A statement prepared the same month by the printers, John A. Gray and Green, listed a total of 4,076 books printed ( L4: 22 Dec 1870 to Bliss, 281, 282 n. 4; 26 Dec 1870 to Drake, 287; ET&S1, 545 n. 43).
bound and unbound “Jumping Frogs” . . . six hundred more that should have come to me on royalties] There is no evidence to support Clemens’s claim that Webb owed him $600 in royalties for 4,000 “inherited” books (see the note at 49.31–33). The 1870 settlement had not satisfied him, however; in April 1875 he claimed that Webb had “swindled me on a verbal publishing contract on my first book (Sketches), (8 years ago) & now he has got caught himself & appeals to me for help. I have advised him to do as I did—make the best of a bad bargain & be wiser next time” (8 Apr 1875 to Webb, L6, 442–43 n. 1).
when I became notorious through the publication of “The Innocents Abroad,”] The Innocents Abroad was a huge success: eight years after publication, in 1877, 119,870 copies had been sold, earning Clemens royalties of approximately $21,876 ( RI 1993, 891 n. 278). Clemens’s reputation also spread to England, where two publishers—John Camden Hotten and George Routledge and Sons—sold nearly 200,000 copies of their editions.
About 1872 I wrote another book, “Roughing It.”] The account that follows, in which Clemens describes his negotiations and agreements with Bliss and the American Publishing Company for the publication of Roughing It and A Tramp Abroad, essentially duplicates—with minor variations—the version he gives in the Autobiographical Dictation of 21 February 1906 (see AutoMT1 , 369–72 and notes on 596–97).
Newton Case] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 24 May 1906, note at 53.19–20.
Source documents.
TS1 Typescript, leaves numbered 734–44 (altered in pencil to 744–54), made from Hobby’s notes and revised.TS2 Typescript, leaves numbered 891–900, made from the revised TS1.
Hobby incorporated Clemens’s TS1 revisions into TS2. Clemens wrote ‘used’ on the first page of TS2, which is not accurate: no part of this dictation was published in NAR.