Examination of the books and punishment of Scott, who had stolen twenty-six thousand dollarsⒶtextual note—Webster refuses books which Mr. Clemens wishes published and accepts worthless ones—Finally he takes drugs, and Mr. Clemens buys him out—He is succeeded by Hall—Webster accepted Stedman’s “Library of American Literature” which caused the firm to fail—Mr. Clemens starts on his lecturing tour around the world and in thirteenⒶtextual note months pays off all his indebtedness—J. W. Paige,Ⓐtextual note and the type-setting machine.
IⒶtextual note suspected that that bookkeeper, Scott, was going to have an uncomfortable time. Whenever Webster got a fellow human being by the scruff of the neck, so to speak—a human being who was helpless, a human being who could be strangled without in any way endangering the strangler—the strangulation was exceedingly likely to ensue.
Charles L. Webster was one of the most assful persons I have ever metⒺexplanatory note—perhaps the most assful. The times when he had an opportunity to be an ass and failed to take advantage of it were so few that, in a monarchy, they would have entitled him to a decoration. The thing which he had proposed concerning Scott—the laying of the time-worn trap in the form of marked money—was a good common-senseⒶtextual note idea, and as it offered Webster a chance to play detective, and snoop and spy around and catch somebody committing sin, I expected him to set that project in operation at once. He was very fond of detective work. There wasn’t a detective in America—at least a distinguished one—that knew less about it than Webster did. He was about on a level with Sherlock HolmesⒺexplanatory note.
Webster did not set the trap—why he didn’t is beyond my guess. His suspicions had not been removed. They continued alive. As the months went by,Ⓐtextual note rumors floated over from Jersey to the effect that Scott was become a very fast and very popular young man in his town; that he was starting social clubs of various kinds and making himself useful to them as manager or director or president, and so on; that he was the life and soul of these clubs; that he was a valuable supporter of the livery stables; that the life he was leading was an expensive one—for him, or for somebody—but a profitable one for his community.
Three or four months after Webster had proposed to set that trap the time came for an examination of the books by expert accountants,Ⓐtextual note in the interest of Mrs. Grant. Webster ordered the examination. The experts came, and Scott lavished his assistance upon them. He got out the books and spread them open. He would fetch a sweep down a column in the journal, point to the total at the bottom, skip to the ledger, show that the total in the ledger tallied with the total in the journal. The whole examination was over in a little while. The experts went away satisfied. Webster was satisfied—and as for Scott, he was probably something more than satisfied.
But Fred Grant was not satisfied. He had heard those rumors. By the authority in him vested as representative of three-fourths of the partnership in the book, he ordered [begin page 75] another examinationⒺexplanatory note, without giving any notice of it. He selected the expert accountants himself, and they stepped into Scott’s domain armed and equipped for business, and unexpected. They called for the books. Scott bustled around, got them out, as before, began as before to sweep his finger down a journal column and then show the accountant that the journal and the ledger tallied. But he got in only one sample of his help. The expert coldly explained to him that he knew how to examine books and didn’t need the assistance of a bookkeeper who was personally interested in the examination.
Webster was looking on. He said that the color went out of poor Scott’s face,Ⓐtextual note and he looked very sick. He excused himself from further attendance—said he would go home and lie down. The expert found that Scott had stolen twenty-six thousand dollars. Webster and the other tadpole, Whitford, were now in a high state of excitement and effectiveness. Whitford set himself the task of fetching Scott before the grand jury, with the idea of hanging him, whichⒶtextual note couldn’t be done for that kind of an offence,Ⓐtextual note but Whitford didn’t know it. Webster set himself the task of finding out what sort of a record lay back of Scott—a thing which he might better have done before he hired him. But, as I have said, Webster was one of the most assful persons I have ever known. He got at Scott’s record without any difficulty. It was easy to trace him from employment to employment. In fact you could trace him from one employment to the next by the stolen money which he had dripped along the road. Poor Scott was sent to the penitentiary for five yearsⒺexplanatory note—or nine—I don’t remember which. It was another instance of sending up the wrong man. It ought to have been Webster.
Webster had been hating me pretty venomously on account of the sarcasms which I had tried to entertain him with at the time that he hired his fine new quarters in Union Square. His detestation of me had solidified and become permanent and insoluble when the latest contract had made him master and me his slave. I was not able to understand why he had not hunted Scott down when he first suspected him, for that was his nature. In trying to solve the riddle I arrived at the charitable conclusion that Webster was willing to have the concern robbed because it cost me nine dollars where it cost him one. I have always been charitable in my judgments of people, and that was my guess as an explanation of Webster’s long continued indifference in the Scott matter. There seemed evidence that that might be the explanation,Ⓐtextual note when the matter used to cross my mind in later times. For instance, whereas the book had been distributed among the group of regular general agents, here and there, in great centresⒶtextual note of population throughout the country, we had reserved the New York general agency for ourselves. It was a matter quite easily handled, and was worth to us a profit of thirty thousand dollars. By and by Webster, as autocrat, and without consulting me, generously gave the whole profit of this general agency to the Grants, not even requiring them to pay part of the salaries and other general agency expenses. I think he was willing to stand his three-thousand-dollarⒶtextual note part of the sacrifice so long as I had to stand twenty-seven thousand—besides he might find some way to recoup, whereas I couldn’t.
Three-fourths of the twenty-six thousand dollars stolen by Scott had to be made good to the Grants, since the money was taken after it was already in our possession. This [begin page 76] expense had been put upon us by Webster’s stupidity and mismanagement, but that did not discourage him from appealing to me beseechingly and tearfully to pay to him his share of that loss out of my pocket. He had originally been intended for a mendicant,Ⓐtextual note and he knew the trade by instinct. He could beg like a professional. I am the most assful person I have ever been acquainted with, and I granted his prayer, although I was not able to see how his tenth of the deficit of eighteen or nineteen thousand dollars could amount to four thousandⒺexplanatory note. But apparently it did. He was a master hand at figures when he was figuring for C. L. Webster.
In the early days, when the general agents were being chosen, he conferred one of the best westernⒶtextual note general agencies upon an ex-preacher, a professional revivalist whom God had deposited in IowaⒶtextual note for improprieties of one kind and another which had been committed by that State. All the other candidates for agencies warned Webster to keep out of that man’s hands, assuring him that no sagacities of Whitford, or anybody else, would be able to defeat that revivalist’s inborn proclivity to steal. Their persuasions went for nothing. Webster gave him the agency. We furnished him the books. He did a thriving trade. He collected a gross sum of thirty-six thousand dollars, and Webster never got a cent of itⒺexplanatory note.
It is no great marvel to me that Mrs. Grant got a matter of half a million dollars out of that book. The miracle is that it didn’t run her into debt. It was fortunate for her that we had only one Webster. It was an unnatural oversight in me that I didn’t hunt for another one.
Let me try to bring this painful business to a close. One of the things which poisoned Webster’s days and nights was the aggravatingⒶtextual note circumstance that whereas he, Charles L. Webster, was the great publisher—the greatest of publishers—and my name did not appear anywhere as a member of the firm, the public persisted in regarding me as the substance of that firm and Webster the shadow. Everybody who had a book to publish offered it to me, not to Webster. I accepted several excellent books, but Webster declined them every time, and he was master. But if anybody offered him Ⓐtextual note a book,Ⓐtextual note he was so charmed with the compliment that he took the book without examining it. He was not able to get hold of one that could make its living.
Joe Jefferson wrote me and said he had written his autobiography and he would like me to be the publisher. Of course I wanted the book. I sent his letter to Webster and asked him to arrange the matter. Webster did not decline the book. He simply ignored itⒺexplanatory note, and brushed the matter out of his mind. He accepted and published two or three war books that furnished no profitⒺexplanatory note. He accepted still another one:Ⓐtextual note distributed the agency contracts for it, named its price (three dollars and a half in cloth) and also agreed to have the book ready by a certain date, two or three months ahead. One day I went down to New York and visited the office and asked for a sight of that book. I asked Webster how many thousand words it contained. He said he didn’t know. I asked him to count the words, by rough estimate. He did it. I said,
“ItⒶtextual note doesn’t contain words enough for the price and dimensionsⒺexplanatory note,Ⓐtextual note by four-fifths. You will have to pad it with a brick. We must start a brickyardⒶtextual note, and right away, because it is much cheaper to make bricks than it is to buy them in the market.”
[begin page 77]It set him in a fury. Any little thing like that would have that effect. He was one of the most sensitive creatures I ever saw, for the quality of the material that he was made of.
He had several books on hand—worthless books which he had accepted because they had been offered to him instead of to me—and I found that he had never counted the words in any of them. He had taken them without examination. Webster was a good general agent, but he knew nothing about publishing, and he was incapable of learning anything about it. By and by I found that he had agreed to resurrect Henry Ward Beecher’s “Life of Christ.” I suggested that he ought to have tried forⒶtextual note Lazarus, because that had been tried once and we knew it could be done. He was exasperated again. He certainly was the most sensitive creature that ever was, for his make. He had also advanced to Mr. Beecher, who was not in prosperous circumstances at the time, five thousand dollars on the future royalties. Mr. Beecher was to revamp the book—or rather I think he was to finish the book. I think he had just issued the first of the two volumes of which it was to consist when that ruinous scandal broke out and suffocated the enterprise. I think the second volume had not been written, and that Mr. Beecher was now undertaking to write it. If he failed to accomplish this within a given time he was to return the money. He did not succeed, and the money was eventually returnedⒺexplanatory note.
Webster kept back a book of mine, “A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur,” as long as he could,Ⓐtextual note and finally published it so surreptitiouslyⒺexplanatory note that it took two or three years to find out that there was any such book. He suppressed a compilation made by Howells and me, “The Library of Humor,” so long,Ⓐtextual note and finally issued it so clandestinely, that I doubt if anybody in America ever did find out that there was such a bookⒺexplanatory note.
William M. Laffan told me that Mr. Walters, of Baltimore,Ⓐtextual note was going to have a sumptuous book made which should illustrate in detail his princely art collectionⒺexplanatory note; that he was going to bring the best artists from Paris to make the illustrations; that heⒶtextual note was going to make the book himself and see to it that it was made exactly to his taste; that he was going to spend a quarter of a million dollars on it; that he wanted it issued at a great price—a price consonantⒶtextual note with its sumptuous character, and that he wanted no penny of the proceeds. The publisher would have nothing to do but distribute the book and take the whole of the profit. Laffan said,
“ThereⒶtextual note, Mark, you can make a fortune out of that without any troubleⒺexplanatory note at all, and without risk or expense.”
I said I would send Webster down to Baltimore at once. I tried to do it, but I never succeeded. Webster never touched the matter in any way whatever. If it had been a second-hand dog that Mr. Walters wanted published, he would have only needed to apply to Webster. Webster would have broken his neck getting down to Baltimore to annex that dog. ButⒶtextual note Mr. Walters had applied to the wrong man. Webster’s pride was hurt, and he would not look at Mr. Walters’s book. Webster had immense pride, but he was short of other talents.
Webster was the victim of a cruel neuralgia in the head. He eased his pain with the new German drug, phenacetineⒺexplanatory note. The physicians limited his use of it, but he found a way to get it in quantity:Ⓐtextual note under our free institutions anybody can poison himself that wants [begin page 78] to and will pay the price. He took this drug with increasing frequency and in increasing quantity. It stupefied him and he went about as one in a dream. He ceased from coming to the office except at intervals, and when he came he was pretty sure to exercise his authority in ways perilous for the business. In his condition,Ⓐtextual note he was not responsible for his acts.
Something had to be done. Whitford explained that there was no way to get rid of this dangerous element except by buying Webster out. But what was there to buy? Webster had always promptly collected any money that was due him. He had squandered, long ago, my share of the book’s profit—aⒶtextual note hundred thousand dollars. The business was gasping, dying. The whole of it was not worth a dollar and a half. Then what would be a fair price for me to pay for a tenth interest in it? After much consultation and much correspondence, it transpired that Webster would be willing to put up with twelve thousand dollars and step outⒺexplanatory note. I furnished the check.
Webster’s understudyⒶtextual note and business manager had now been for some time a young fellow named Frederick J. Hall, another Dunkirk importationⒺexplanatory note. We got all our talent from that stud-farm at Dunkirk. Poor Hall meant well, but he was wholly incompetent for the place. He carried it along for a time with the heroic hopefulness of youth, but there was an obstruction which was bound to defeat him sooner or later. It was this:
Stedman, the poet, had made a compilation, several years earlier, called “The Library of American Literature”—nine or ten octavo volumes. A publisher in Cincinnati had tried to make it succeed. It swallowed up that publisher, family and all. If Stedman had offered me the book I should have said “Sold by subscription and on the instalment plan, there is nothing in this book for us at a royalty above 4 per centⒶtextual note, but, in fact, it would swamp us at any kind of royalty, because such a book would require a cash capital of several hundred thousand dollars, and we haven’t a hundred thousand.”
But Stedman didn’t bring the book to me. He took it to Webster. Webster was delighted and flattered. He accepted the book on an 8 per centⒶtextual note royalty,Ⓐtextual note and thereby secured the lingering suicide of Charles L. Webster and CompanyⒺexplanatory note. We struggled along two or three years under that deadly load. After Webster’s time,Ⓐtextual note poor little Hall struggled along with it and got to borrowing money of a bank in which Whitford was a directorⒺexplanatory note—borrowing on notes endorsed by me and renewed from time to time. These notes used to come to me in Italy for renewals. I endorsed them without examining them,Ⓐtextual note and sent them back. At last I found that additions had been made to the borrowings,Ⓐtextual note without my knowledge or consent. I began to feel troubled. I wrote Mr. Hall about it and said I would like to have an exhaustive report of the condition of the business. The next mail brought that exhaustive report, whereby it appeared that the concern’s assets exceeded its liabilities by ninety-two thousand dollars. Then I felt better. But there was no occasion to feel better, for the report ought to have read the other way. Poor Hall soon wrote to say that we needed more money and must have it right away, or the concern would fail.
I sailed for New York. I emptied into the till twenty-four thousand dollars which I had earned with the pen. I looked around to see where we could borrow money. There wasn’t any place. This was in the midst of the fearful panic of ’93Ⓔexplanatory note. I went up to Hartford [begin page 79] to borrow—couldn’t borrow a penny. I offered to mortgage our house and grounds and furniture for any small loan. The property had cost aⒶtextual note hundred and sixty-sevenⒶtextual note thousand dollarsⒺexplanatory note, and seemed good for a small loan. Henry RobinsonⒺexplanatory note said,
“Clemens,Ⓐtextual note I give you my word, you can’t borrow three thousand dollars on that property.”
VeryⒶtextual note well, I knew that if that was so,Ⓐtextual note I couldn’t borrow it on a basketful of governmentⒶtextual note bonds. WebsterⒶtextual note and Company failed. The firm owed me about sixty thousand dollars, borrowed money. It owed Mrs. Clemens sixty-five thousand dollars, borrowed money. Also it owed ninety-six creditors an average of a thousand dollars or soⒶtextual note apieceⒺexplanatory note. The panic had stopped Mrs. Clemens’s income. It had stopped my income from my books. We had but nine thousand dollars in the bank. We hadn’t a penny wherewith to pay the Webster creditors. Henry Robinson said,
“HandⒶtextual note over everything belonging to Webster and Company to the creditors,Ⓐtextual note and ask them to accept that in liquidation of the debts. They’ll do it. You’ll see that they’ll do it. They are aware that you are not individually responsible for those debts, that the responsibility rests upon the firm as a firm.”
I didn’t think much of that way out of the difficulty, and when I made my report to Mrs. Clemens she wouldn’t hear of it at all. She said,
“ThisⒶtextual note is my house. The creditors shall have it. Your books are your property—turn them over to the creditors. Reduce the indebtedness in everyⒶtextual note way you can think of—then get to work and earn the rest of the indebtedness, if your life is spared. And don’t be afraid. We shall pay aⒶtextual note hundred cents on the dollar, yet.”Ⓐtextual note
It was sound prophecy. Mr. Rogers stepped in,Ⓐtextual note about this time,Ⓐtextual note and preached to the creditors. He said they could not have Mrs. Clemens’s house—that she must be a preferred creditor,Ⓐtextual note and would give up the Webster notes for sixty-five thousand dollars, money borrowed of her. He said they could not have my books; that they were not an asset of Webster and CompanyⒺexplanatory note; that the creditors could have everything that belonged to Webster and Company; that I would wipe from the slate the sixty thousand dollars I had lent to the Company, and that I would now make it my task to earn the rest of the Webster indebtedness, if I could, and pay aⒶtextual note hundred cents on the dollar—but that this must not be regarded as a promise.
In a conversation with Mr. Rogers and a couple of lawyers, in those days, one of the men said,
“NotⒶtextual note 5 per centⒶtextual note of the men who become ruined at fifty-eight ever recover.” AnotherⒶtextual note said, with enthusiasm, “Five per cent! None of them ever recover.” It made me feel very sick.
That was in ’94, I believe—though it may have been in the beginning of ’95. However, Mrs. Clemens and ClaraⒶtextual note and I started, on the 15th of July, 1895,Ⓐtextual note on our lecturing raid around the world. We lectured and robbed and raided for thirteen months. I wrote a book and published it. I sent the book-money and lecture-moneyⒶtextual note to Mr. Rogers as fast as we capturedⒶtextual note it. He banked it and saved it up for the creditors. We implored him to pay off the smaller creditors straightway, for they needed the money, but he wouldn’t do it. [begin page 80] He said that when I had milked the world dry he would take the result and distribute it, pro rata,Ⓐtextual note among the Webster people.
At the end of ’98 or the beginning of ’99 Mr. Rogers cabled me, at Vienna,
“TheⒶtextual note creditors have all been paidⒺexplanatory note aⒶtextual note hundred cents on the dollar. There is eighteen thousand five hundred dollars left. What shall I do with it?”
I answered,Ⓐtextual note “Put it in Federal Steel”Ⓐtextual note—which he did, all except a thousand dollars, and took it out again in two months with a profit of 125Ⓐtextual note per centⒺexplanatory note.
There—thanksⒶtextual note be! A hundred times I have tried to tell this intolerable story with a pen, but I never could do it. It always made me sick before I got half way to the middle of it. But this time I have held my grip and walked the floor and emptied it all out of my system, and I hope to never hear of it again.
It would not be right for me to pretend that the speculations which I was talking about the other day ended my speculative career. During 1886, and the four succeeding years, while Webster was sitting on my financial nest and hatching ruin for me, I was assisting in the work at my end of the line, Hartford. I entered into an arrangement with a descendant of Judas Iscariot by the name of J. W. Paige, a natural liar and thief, to build a type-setting machine, I to furnish the money. Let us not dwell upon this. The machine was a failureⒺexplanatory note. It was a beautiful machine—the most wonderful creation that has ever issued from a human being’s brain. It stands in Cornell UniversityⒺexplanatory note, a monument of human ingenuity and stupidity—the ingenuity was Paige’s, the stupidity was mine. I spent aⒶtextual note hundred and seventy thousand dollars on it. More than two-thirds of it came out of Mrs. Clemens’s pocket. We pulled through——
Charles L. Webster was one of the most assful persons I have ever met] This dictation about the ill fortunes of Webster and Company is one-sided and in many instances erroneous. Although some of the inaccuracies in the following account are pointed out in the notes, it is not possible to recover the actual events with any certainty. In Mark Twain, Business Man, Samuel Charles Webster records a more even-handed version of the interactions between Clemens and Webster, whose fundamentally incompatible personalities made conflict inevitable ( MTBus; see also the note at 80.14–18).
on a level with Sherlock Holmes] Although Clemens himself employed the literary device of mysteries solved by clever deduction (usually for comic effect), he had no admiration for Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, whom he considered a “pompous sentimental ‘extraordinary man’ with his cheap & ineffectual ingenuities” (8 Sept 1901 to Twichell, CtY-BR). His “Double-Barrelled Detective Story” is a parody of the genre in general and Sherlock Holmes in particular (SLC 1902a; for a discussion of Clemens’s detective fiction see Lillian S. Robinson’s “Afterword” in SLC 1996c).
Fred Grant . . . ordered another examination] Colonel Frederick Grant, the general’s son, questioned Webster and Company’s accounting in April 1887, complaining that legal fees had been improperly “charged” to Mrs. Grant. He asked his own accountant to examine the books, and in July reported the results in a five-page typed letter: the total net profits to date on the Memoirs were about $678,000; about $475,000 of this (70 percent) was due to Mrs. Grant, who had been paid $361,000. She was therefore owed $114,000, instead of the company’s figure of $33,000. The dispute continued through the following winter, with Grant threatening a lawsuit and Webster and Company rejecting all demands. It is not clear how this matter was resolved, but no legal action followed (Webster to SLC, 23 Apr 1887, and Grant to Webster and Co., 22 July 1887, CU-MARK; N&J3, 319 n. 54).
expert found that Scott had stolen twenty-six thousand dollars . . . sent to the penitentiary for five years] Frank M. Scott (b. 1859?) was hired as a cashier and bookkeeper by Charles L. Webster and Company in July 1885. According to Clemens’s notebook, Webster almost immediately began to receive anonymous letters claiming Scott was a thief. It is certain that by October 1886 Webster suspected him of embezzlement, but he waited for some months before commissioning an expert to investigate. Arrested in March 1887, Scott admitted he had been stealing from the start, covering up the shortfall with false entries in the books. He used the money to pay debts, to speculate in the stock market, and to buy jewelry for his wife; he also started to build a house. He was convicted of embezzling $26,000 and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment. In late 1890 Clemens and Webster successfully petitioned the governor to have him pardoned for his family’s sake. After his release he got a job as a cashier and bookkeeper for a printer, and again “misappropriated his employer’s moneys to the extent of about $6,300” (S. Meredith Dickinson 1900, 344–49; N&J3, 283–84 n. 194, 314; New York Times: “A Weakness for Display,” 13 Mar 1887, 2; “Confessions of a Thief,” 18 Mar 1887, 5; Webster to SLC, 25 Mar 1887, CU-MARK; “City and Suburban News,” 23 Apr 1887, 3).
pay to him his share of that loss . . . deficit of eighteen or nineteen thousand dollars could amount to four thousand] Scott’s accounts showed a payout of $8,000 to Webster, who claimed he had drawn only $4,000. In a contract dated 1 April 1887 (NPV) Clemens raised Webster’s salary by $800 a year for five years to compensate for his loss. He later regretted his generosity, and suggested that Webster “relinquish & sacrifice” his raise to pay the salary of a new employee (28 Dec 1887 to Webster, NPV, in MTBus, 389–90). Some of the stolen funds were recovered—an estimated $8,000—partly from the sale of the house that Scott had been building in his home town of Roseville, New Jersey (Webster to SLC, 29 Dec 1887, CU-MARK; N&J3, 315–16 n. 46, 322 n. 66, 323 n. 70; MTBus, 349).
ex-preacher, a professional revivalist . . . a gross sum of thirty-six thousand dollars, and Webster never got a cent of it] The Iowa agent, R. T. Root, was a member of the American Bible Society. A fellow member later described him as the embodiment of piety “to outward appearances,” but in reality a swindler who paid his debts only when “it suited his conscience” (Antrobus 1915, 1:363; American Bible Society 1872, appendix, 9). In mid-1885 Clemens received a warning from his brother Orion (then living in Keokuk, Iowa) that Root was “a sharper,” but replied with confidence that half of the general agencies “have made sales so greatly exceeding their contracts, that the other half could default, now, without hurting the book or me, either; but none of them will default. Such a thing is entirely out of the question” (OC to SLC, 21 Aug 1885, CU-MARK; 30 Aug 1885 to OC, CU-MARK). Orion was proved right, however, when Root defaulted on a debt to Webster and Company of about $30,000. In June 1888 Root offered to settle for $8,000, but was refused. In early 1889 a court judgment awarded the company the full amount, but only $9,000 was recovered, $7,000 of which was paid to Mrs. Grant for her share of the settlement (Hall to SLC, 8 June 1888, CU-MARK; N&J3, 390 n. 306).
Joe Jefferson wrote me and said . . . He simply ignored it] Joseph Jefferson (1829–1905) was born into a theatrical family and became a leading comedian of his day. His signature role was in Rip Van Winkle, adapted from the story by Washington Irving, which he played for forty years. He and Clemens had been acquainted since at least 1885. On 11 May 1887 Clemens wrote to Webster, “Joe Jefferson has written his Autobiography! You see, by George we’ve got to keep places open for great books; they spring up in the most unexpected places.” Jefferson sent his manuscript to Clemens, who found it “delightful reading” (11 May 1887 and 28 May 1887 to Webster, NPV, in MTBus, 382, 383). Five months later Jefferson wrote to Webster:
I presumed from the long silence that followed my correspondence with Mr. Clemens—to whom I am under many obligations—that you had given up the idea of publishing my book. Being under this impression I began negociations with another firm.
Should the terms it may propose be unacceptable I will be pleased to write you on this subject. I would have replied to your letter before but have lately been acting in the West and your communication only reached me yesterday. (20 Oct 1887, NPV)
The Autobiography of Joseph Jefferson was published by the Century Company in 1890.
He accepted and published two or three war books that furnished no profit] The first of these war books was McClellan’s Own Story: The War for the Union, by Major General George Brinton McClellan, published posthumously in December 1886. This was followed in 1887 by The Genesis of the Civil War: The Story of Sumter 1860–1861, by Brigadier General Samuel Wylie Crawford, and Tenting on the Plains, by Elizabeth B. Custer, widow of General George A. Custer (see also AD, 8 Oct 1906, note at 247.30). Finally, in 1888, the company issued the Personal Memoirs of General Philip Henry Sheridan ( N&J3, 269 n. 141). According to a later recollection by Frederick J. Hall, Webster’s successor, the “military memoirs” were initially successful, but sales rapidly declined (Hall 1947). Clemens’s notebooks of the period are peppered with comments and calculations relating to the poor sales and diminishing profits of all the Webster and Company books (see, for example, N&J3, 303 n. 12, 310, 332, 429–31). Clemens himself had entertained high hopes for these books. But by October 1888 it was clear, according to Hall, that “war literature of any kind and no matter by whom written is played out. We have got to hustle everlastingly to get rid of 75,000 sets of Sheridan. I had set my mind on 100,000 sets but am forced to lessen this figure. There is not a man today who could write another book on the war and sell 5000 in the whole country” (15 Oct 1888 to SLC, CU-MARK).
It doesn’t contain words enough for the price and dimensions] Clemens is probably referring to Almira Russell Hancock’s book about her husband, Reminiscences of Winfield Scott Hancock (1887). This book was one-third as long as the other war books: even in large type it contained only three hundred and forty pages, and was padded with appendixes and full-page illustrations. According to Paine, it did not pay for the cost of manufacture ( N&J3, 320 n. 60, 360 n. 191; MTB, 2:856).
he had agreed to resurrect Henry Ward Beecher’s “Life of Christ” . . . money was eventually returned] Beecher, the famous liberal pastor of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, had published the first volume of his Life of Jesus, the Christ, in 1871 with J. B. Ford and Company, but the second volume remained incomplete. In January 1887 Beecher agreed to write his autobiography for publication through Webster and Company. First, however, he planned to finish the Life of Jesus so that Webster could publish a complete edition. Beecher received a $5,000 advance against royalties for both works, but died on 7 March before fulfilling his contract. After lengthy negotiations, his family returned the advance in December 1888 (Hall to SLC, 27 Dec 1888, and Webster to SLC, 26 Jan 1887, CU-MARK; 11 Jan 1889 to Hall, VtMiM, in MTLP, 252; N&J3, 276 n. 169). The “ruinous scandal” began in September 1872, less than a year after the first volume of the Life of Jesus appeared, when Beecher was accused of committing adultery with a parishioner (see AD, 10 Oct 1906, note at 253.17–22).
Webster kept back a book of mine, “A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur,” . . . published it so surreptitiously] Clemens did not complete A Connecticut Yankee until the spring of 1889, and it was published later that year. By that time Webster had sold his interest in the business and retired, and it was his successor, Frederick J. Hall (see the note at 78.14–15), who produced the book on a lightning schedule ( CY, 571–72, 577–89; 12 Nov 1888 to Hall [2nd], NN-BGC, in MTLP, 251 n. 3).
He suppressed a compilation made by Howells and me, “The Library of Humor,” . . . there was such a book] Beginning in late 1880 Clemens developed a plan to collaborate on an anthology, Mark Twain’s Library of Humor, with William Dean Howells and Charles Hopkins Clark, an editor with the Hartford Courant (Clemens discusses this book further in AD, 17 July 1906; for Clark see AutoMT1 , 576 n. 317.33). They planned to publish it through James R. Osgood, but when his company failed in May 1885 the work had not yet been completed. Webster and Company bought the rights to all of Osgood’s Mark Twain titles, including the Library of Humor. By the time Howells, the principal compiler, had completed the work in late 1885, he was under contract to Harper and Brothers and could not let his name appear “except over their imprint.” Clemens paid him for his work, but decided to “pigeon-hole it & wait a few years & see what new notion Providence will take concerning it” (Howells to SLC, 16 Oct 1885, CU-MARK, in MTHL, 2:537; 18 Oct 1885 to Howells, NN-BGC, in MTHL, 2:538–39; for Howells see AutoMT1 , 475 n. 70.19). In early 1887 Howells proposed giving the Library of Humor to Harpers. Webster objected, but admitted that he could not publish it until “we get some of the important pressing things off our hands,” assuring Clemens that it “cannot get too old, it will always sell” (Webster to SLC, 17 Feb 1887, CU-MARK). By the summer of 1887 Clemens had become impatient, frustrated by the need to secure permissions and arrange for illustrations. Later that year he wrote in his notebook, “Lib Humor ought to have issued & sold 100,000, fall of ’86, stead of being balled-up with Custer & Cox in the winter of 87–8” ( N&J3, 360). The book was finally issued in 1888; its sales were good, but not as high as Clemens had hoped (3 Aug 1887 to Webster, NN-BGC, in MTLP, 221–22; 15 Aug 1887 to Hall and Webster, NN-BGC, in MTLP, 223–24; N&J3, 35–36 n. 67, 276 n. 172, 302–3 n. 10; MTB, 2:857; for the later edition, published by Harpers, see AD, 17 July 1906; for the book by Sunset Cox, see AD, 18 Dec 1906, note at 318.39–40).
William M. Laffan told me that Mr. Walters, of Baltimore . . . illustrate in detail his princely art collection] William Mackay Laffan (1848–1909), a longtime friend of Clemens’s, was born in Ireland and emigrated to America as a young man. From 1877 he wrote on art and drama for the New York Sun, with which paper he would be connected for the next thirty-two years, as publisher, general manager, and eventually proprietor. An authority on Chinese ceramics, he served as a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (“W. M. Laffan Dead of Appendicitis,” New York Times, 20 Nov 1909, 11; Mitchell 1924, 352). William Thompson Walters (1819–94) was born in Pennsylvania and made his fortune in commerce, banking, and railroads. His collection had special strengths in French paintings and Asian ceramics; it became the core of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, which opened to the public in 1934.
you can make a fortune out of that without any trouble] In a letter of 13 January 1887 to Webster, Clemens estimated the “probable” profit to be $750,000. Webster was indeed dilatory in talking to Laffan. Clemens wrote him on 5 September 1887, and again on 17 October, urging him to meet with Laffan, who planned to depart soon for France to engage artists for his project (13 Jan 1887 to Webster, NPV, in MTLP, 213; 5 Sept 1887 to Webster, NPV, in MTBus, 385–86; 17 Oct 1887 to Webster and Co., NN-BGC, in MTLP, 236). The book was later postponed for other reasons, however, which did not involve Webster. In May 1888 Clemens explained to Hall:
Laffan was to go to Europe & get the artists, and the man to write the letter-press (the mighty Wolf of Paris), & superintend clear till the plates were made & the books printed & placed in our hands—a matter of 2 or 3 years.
But since then I have found a job for Laffan which will pay him $210,000 in ten or twelve months, & of course he wouldn’t leave that till it is finished, to tackle the art book. In fact I could not let him. So we will leave the art book unmentioned for a year, & then maybe take another shy at it. (7 May 1888 to Hall, NN-BGC, in MTLP, 245–46)
The catalog, with a preface by Laffan, was ultimately published by D. Appleton and Company in 1897, after Walters’s death: Oriental Ceramic Art: Illustrated by Examples from the Collection of W. T. Walters.
new German drug, phenacetine] This drug, also known as acetophenetidin, was introduced in 1888 as an analgesic and antipyretic by the Bayer company of Germany. Although widely used for many years, it is now known to have dangerous side effects—such as kidney damage and cancer—and has been superseded by acetaminophen, to which it is related.
Webster would be willing to put up with twelve thousand dollars and step out] In 1887 Webster, who suffered from a chronic condition diagnosed as acute neuralgia, found it increasingly difficult to participate actively in the business. Clemens recorded in his notebook in February 1888 that Webster had agreed to “retire from business, from all authority, & from the city, till April 1, 1889, & try to get back his health” ( N&J3 , 374). Webster never again acted as a member of the firm, and in December of 1888 his retirement became official when—after a series of offers and counteroffers—he agreed to sell his share for $12,000. He remained dissatisfied with the settlement, however, as he told Whitford on 31 December 1888: “I have sold out my interest for far less than I believe it to be worth but it is done and that is the end of it” ( MTBus , 391). He lived quietly with his family in Fredonia until his death on 26 April 1891, at the age of thirty-nine, as a result of “an attack of grip, which led to peritonitis and hemorrhage and caused death” (“Grant’s Publisher Dead,” Columbus [Ga.] In 1887 Webster, who suffered from a chronic condition diagnosed as acute neuralgia, found it increasingly difficult to participate actively in the business. Clemens recorded in his notebook in February 1888 that Webster had agreed to “retire from business, from all authority, & from the city, till April 1, 1889, & try to get back his health” ( N&J3, 374). Webster never again acted as a member of the firm, and in December of 1888 his retirement became official when—after a series of offers and counteroffers—he agreed to sell his share for $12,000. He remained dissatisfied with the settlement, however, as he told Whitford on 31 December 1888: “I have sold out my interest for far less than I believe it to be worth but it is done and that is the end of it” ( MTBus, 391). He lived quietly with his family in Fredonia until his death on 26 April 1891, at the age of thirty-nine, as a result of “an attack of grip, which led to peritonitis and hemorrhage and caused death” (“Grant’s Publisher Dead,” Columbus [Ga.] Enquirer, 29 Apr 1891, 1; N&J3, 298, 374, 374–75 n. 239, 615 n. 151, 625–26 n. 193).
understudy and business manager . . . Frederick J. Hall, another Dunkirk importation] Hall (1861–1926) was born in New York City and attended Peekskill Military Academy. Hired by Webster and Company in the spring of 1884 as a stenographer and office assistant, he gradually assumed further duties. In 1886 he was made a partner in the firm, with a salary of $1,500 a year and a one-twentieth share of the net profits on all books, excepting Grant’s Memoirs (contract of 28 Apr 1886, NPV). During Webster’s absences Hall took charge of the business, and assumed its management entirely when he bought out Webster’s interest in December 1888. After the failure of the company in 1894 he continued his business career, eventually becoming vice-president of the Habirshaw Electric Cable Company. An enthusiastic golfer, he played once a week with John D. Rockefeller (Caldwell and Feiker 1919, 113; “Died,” New York Times, 17 Oct 1926, E9; Hall 1947).
Stedman, the poet . . . thereby secured the lingering suicide of Charles L. Webster and Company] Clemens had known Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833–1908), an influential poet and critic, since the early 1870s (23 Feb 1872 to Redpath, L5, 47 n. 1). In 1887 Webster and Company paid $8,000 to W. E. Dibble, a Cincinnati subscription publisher, for plates of the first five volumes of the Library of American Literature. This proposed ten-volume anthology (to which an eleventh volume was ultimately added), comprising “selections of American literature, both in prose and poetry, from the earliest settlement in this country down to the present time,” was being compiled by Stedman in collaboration with Ellen M. Hutchinson (1851–1933), a writer in the literary department of the New York Tribune. Webster enthusiastically promoted the work to Clemens, who replied, “I think well of the Stedman book, but I can’t somehow bring myself to think very well of it” (1 Mar 1887 to Webster, NPV, in MTLP, 214); but Webster and Company acquired the Library, with Stedman and Hutchinson each receiving a 3 percent royalty. Sales of the series were good, but the slow receipt of installment payments could not offset the cost of producing the books. When Clemens was unable to furnish sufficient working capital, Hall was forced to borrow money to cover the expense (Webster to SLC, 25 Feb 1887, CU-MARK; Stedman and Hutchinson 1888–90; N&J3, 320 n. 62, 341 n. 123, 360–61 n. 195, 464 n. 195, 572, 612–13 n. 141; for Clemens’s opinion of Stedman see AD, 3 July 1908).
a bank in which Whitford was a director] The Mount Morris Bank, located in Harlem, was one of the more persistent creditors of Webster and Company, refusing to renew notes when they became due. As of May 1894 the troubled firm owed the bank $29,500. Whitford was the bank’s attorney, but it has not been confirmed that he was also a director (Harrison to SLC, 1 June 1894, CU-MARK, in HHR, 63 n. 3; 4 May 1894 to OLC, CU-MARK; “Business Troubles,” New York Times, 19 Sept 1894, 11).
fearful panic of ’93] The failure of the National Cordage Company on 4 May 1893 triggered a rapid decline in stock values; by the end of the year, over six hundred banks and fifteen thousand businesses had gone under. The panic led to a depression lasting five years, the country’s worst up to then (Campbell 2008b, 168–69).
The property had cost a hundred and sixty-seven thousand dollars] This is the highest of the various estimates Clemens made of the house’s cost, and it is probably too high. In 1877 the property was assessed for taxes at $66,650 (Courtney 2011, 107–8; bill enclosed with 7 July 1877 to Perkins [1st], Letters 1876–1880 ).
Webster and Company failed . . . ninety-six creditors an average of a thousand dollars or so apiece] The company declared bankruptcy on 18 April 1894, after the Mount Morris Bank demanded repayment. According to the New York Times, its liabilities exceeded its assets by about $40,000 (excluding its debt to Olivia). Clemens ultimately paid some $15,000 to the Mount Morris Bank, which settled for 50 percent of its claim (“Business Troubles,” New York Times, 19 Sept 1894, 11; MTLP, 365; HHR, 23–24; Rogers to SLC, 10 Dec 1897, CU-MARK, in HHR, 306 n. 1; Harrison to SLC, 11 Feb 1898, CU-MARK, in HHR, 322).
Mr. Rogers stepped in . . . they could not have my books; that they were not an asset of Webster and Company] Henry Huttleston Rogers, the wealthy vice-president of the Standard Oil Company, befriended Clemens in the fall of 1893 and guided him through the financial complexities of the bankruptcy. In an attempt to salvage Webster and Company he arranged for the sale of the Library of American Literature to his son-in-law, William Evarts Benjamin, for $50,000, and when bankruptcy became inevitable he transferred Clemens’s personal assets, including the copyright on his books, to Olivia ( AutoMT1 , 192; HHR, 10–11).
We lectured and robbed and raided . . . creditors have all been paid] For details of this world lecturing tour see the Autobiographical Dictation of 4 June 1906. Clemens was accompanied by Olivia and his daughter Clara; Susy and Jean remained in the United States. After Susy died of meningitis in Hartford shortly after the end of the tour, the grieving family settled in London. There Clemens wrote his account of the trip, Following the Equator. The book was completed in May 1897 and published in November. In February 1898 Rogers’s secretary, Katharine I. Harrison (who had handled the details of the financial settlements) wrote that only three claims remained, which would soon be paid (Harrison to SLC, 11 Feb 1898, CU-MARK, in HHR, 322).
“Put it in Federal Steel” . . . a profit of 125 per cent] Acting on Clemens’s behalf, in October 1898 Rogers purchased preferred and common stock (heavily discounted) in the newly incorporated Federal Steel Company for $17,139.87. In December he sold it and reinvested in 712 shares of Federal’s common stock, which soared in value through January 1899 on expectations that the company would combine with rival firms to form a giant steel trust—Rogers himself being one of the prime movers behind this consolidation. Rogers sold the stock on 21 January and reported a gain of $16,000. The U.S. Steel Corporation was founded in 1901, with Rogers as one of the directors and Clemens, once again, as a shareholder (Notebook 40, TS pp. 50, 54, 55, CU-MARK; New York Times: “The Great Steel Trust,” 25 Dec 1898, 2; “Mr. Carnegie Sells Out,” 5 May 1899, 1; “Steel Trust Officers,” New York Evening Tribune, 2 Apr 1901, 1).
I was assisting in the work . . . The machine was a failure] Clemens gives a full account of this disastrous venture in “The Machine Episode” ( AutoMT1 , 101–6). In the present dictation he blames Webster almost entirely for the collapse of his publishing company, but the estimated $170,000 he invested in the typesetter was a contributing factor. In 1885, when the Grant Memoirs were in production, Clemens had nothing but praise for Webster, saying that he had a “tremendous season: but he has come through it with a superb record; & with all its array of business-inventions, -ingenuities & -triumphs, he has not made a single business-misstep” (30 July 1885 to Annie Webster, NPV). By 1888, Clemens’s growing impatience with Webster had turned to dislike, and then to contempt. In a letter of 1 July 1889 to his brother Orion he admitted, “I have never hated any creature with a hundred thousandth fraction of the hatred which I bear that human louse, Webster” (CU-MARK).
It stands in Cornell University] A note in Volume 1 states that one machine survives at the Hartford House and Museum, and that the other was donated by the Mergenthaler Company to Cornell University and later used for scrap metal in World War II ( AutoMT1 , 644 n. 455 footnote). New information indicates that the Mergenthaler Company, which owned both prototypes of the machine, loaned one to Columbia University and one to Cornell. The Cornell machine was displayed from 1898 to 1921, and then returned to the Mergenthaler Company, which donated it to the Mark Twain House and Museum in 1957. The one at Columbia was melted down for scrap metal (Goble 1998, 14; information courtesy of Lance Heidig).
Source documents.
TS1 Typescript, leaves numbered 810–28 (altered in pencil to 819–37), made from Hobby’s notes and revised.TS2 Typescript, leaves numbered 963–81, made from the revised TS1 and further revised.
Hobby incorporated Clemens’s TS1 revisions into TS2, on which Clemens made only one revision; he also wrote ‘not usable yet’ on its first page.