The Harpers Mr. Clemens’s publishers for fourⒶtextual note years—Sales of his books, amount of royalties during these fourⒶtextual note years, etc.—Copy of letter from young journalist telling of skipper who wrecks threeⒶtextual note ships while reading Mark Twain’s books—Incident recalled by this letter, of Jack Van Nostrand finding only twoⒶtextual note books while he traveled in the West—a Bible and “The Innocents Abroad.”
The Harpers have now been my publishers four years and a half, and I have been examining the details of their last Annual Statement which was furnished to me last December, at the end of the fourth year. They have done exceedingly well with all the books, although almost all of them are old, not young—many of them being books that range from fifteen to twenty-seven years old, and the oldest reaching back to thirty-five and forty.
[begin page 234] Old as the books are, the sales have increased each year instead of diminishing, as is the custom. The aggregate of volumes sold in the first year by the Harpers was 90,328; in the second year 104,851; in the third year 133,975; in the fourth year—which was last year—the sale was 160,000 volumes. The aggregate for the four years is 500,000 volumes lacking 11,000.
Of the oldest book, “The Innocents Abroad”—now forty years old—the sales aggregated 46,000 copies in the four years; of “Roughing It”—now thirty-eight years old, I think—40,334 were sold; of “Tom Sawyer,”Ⓐtextual note 41,000Ⓔexplanatory note. And so on.
There is one detail that is especially gratifying to me: the book called “The Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc” has also steadily increased its sales instead of diminishing. The gratification lies in the fact that it is a serious book, and therefore was quite unlikely to meet with favor, since it has always been the way of the world to resent gravity in a humorist. It is a little strange that this should be so, for an absolutely essential part of any real humorist’s native equipment is a deep seriousness and a rather unusually profound sympathy with the sorrows and sufferings of mankind. In one sense that book is a novel; in another and graver sense it is history, and a conscientiously accurate one. This accuracy has been conceded by Andrew Lang, and one may fairly say that from his verdict there is no appealⒺexplanatory note. During twelve years I devoted much study to the Maid’s career, and steeped myself in her words, her acts, and her personality. In the book I made one or two characters of my own invention do things that never happened, but I never attributed an act to the Maid herself that was not strictly historical, and I never put a sentence in her mouth which she had not uttered. I wrote the book for love, not money, and at first, when it appeared serially in Harper’s Monthly Ⓐtextual note, I concealed the authorshipⒺexplanatory note, because my name would have deceived the public into thinking it was a humorous work, and I did not wish to trade upon misplaced confidence. But the imaginary characters which I had introduced into it betrayed me; their acts and sayings were frequently of a humorous sort, and of a sort that too distinctly marked them as my children. When the serial had been running three months in the magazine, letters began to flow in charging me with the authorship, and it was soon evident that further concealment would not be worth while. As I have already said, I wrote the book for love, and was not expecting that it would sell; but to my great gratification my forecast was an error. The book is now fifteen years old, yet it not only sells quite well, considering that it is a serious book from the pen of a humorist, but the sales are steadily increasing. In 1904 it sold 1,726 copies; in 1905, 2,445; in 1906, 5,381; and last year—1907—the sale was 6,574 copies. Yet it is the highest priced book in the collection.
The royalties paid me by the Harpers in the four years were as follows: in 1904, $24,939; in 1905, $29,311.92; in 1906, $39,284.33; in 1907, $48,225.98. Aggregate for the four years, $141,761.23.
A letter has arrived this morning which brings to my mind an incident of forty years ago. The book called “The Innocents Abroad” is a history of the Quaker City Ⓐtextual note Excursion of that long past time. Jack Van Nostrand was among the excursionists. He was a [begin page 235] charming, good-natured, long-legged New York lad of seventeen, and belonged to our small clique on board the ship—a clique consisting of Dan SloteⒶtextual note, now dead; Moulton, now dead; Davis, now dead; Church, now dead; young Jack, long ago dead; and myself, at the present day still alive. Two years after the completion of the excursion poor Jack was smitten with consumption, and his parents sent him to Colorado in the hope that a life in the open air there might save him—a hope which was disappointedⒺexplanatory note. Meantime “The Innocents Abroad” had been published and distributed about the country. Jack rode two or three hundred miles, horseback, through the cattle ranches of Colorado all alone, and at the end of his trip he wrote back to Dan SloteⒶtextual note and said substantially this:
“Tell Clemens I saw no human beings on that long trip but cattle ranchmen, and I fed and slept nowhere but in their mud cabins. Tell him that from the beginning to the end I saw only two books: one was a Bible, the other was ‘TheⒶtextual note Innocents Abroad.’Ⓐtextual note The Bible was in good condition.”
The letter referred to as having arrived this morning quite naturally brought that ancient incident to my mind. It is to my secretary, and comes from a young journalist who visited us a year agoⒺexplanatory note on his way from his home in Australia on a zigzag journey to the uttermost parts of the earth. He says, dating from Glasgow:
I have a grudge against 21 Fifth Avenue and I want to make it known. In just completing a voyage on the tramp steamer “Charing Cross” from Seville to Glasgow, I have had to endure with a skipper whose library (a life collection) consists of one Bible in Welsh and three of Mark Twain’s books in American. As I am the only shipmate this old Welsh skipper has had who has seen Mark Twain, I suppose my burden was really heavier than those who have gone before. At no time, waking or sleeping, fair weather or foul, was I safe from quotations, which after the second day out became repetitions. Meals I dreaded as an Inquisition. Coffee was never handed except with the remark “Can you see two fathoms in that?” (Pun: two-fathoms, mark twain.)
In curiosity I investigated the career of this David Davies, master of the good ship “Charing Cross” out of London, and was not surprised to find that he has wrecked three ships in his day. At each time, when the “accident” happened, he was in his berth studying the humorous shelf of his library. Now I am to take one of two courses and I would be glad of your assistance in deciding. Either, as a preservation measure, in the interest of British shipping, must I commence an agitation for the enactment of a law prohibiting the sale of Mark Twain’s books to master mariners, and compelling the circulating libraries at British seaports to remove his volumes from their shelves, or take this alternative—more profitable but hardly as decent as the one stated already. Why not? Secure an option on the remaining years of this David Davies, Master Mariner, and having secured this option, present him with three or four other volumes by Mark Twain—then find and interview the owners of such ships where the profits are light and the insurance heavy, and, for a consideration, make them acquainted with this David Davies, Master Mariner. Then finally study Loyd’s shipping reports and collect dividends. The only running expenses of the Syndicate (I am assuming that you will take shares) would be the cost of three Mark Twain books for each steamer, say approximately 18 volumes a year. There’s money in it.
The Harpers have now been my publishers four years and a half . . . “Tom Sawyer,” 41,000] Harpers became Clemens’s exclusive publishers in October 1903 (see AutoMT2 , 528 n. 143.34–144.5, 539 n. 160.32–36). The sales and royalty figures listed here, as well as those in the next two paragraphs, are from a Harpers statement entitled “Volumes of Mark Twain Sold from Nov 1—1903 to Oct 31—1907” (CU-MARK). In the Autobiographical Dictation of 3 June 1908, Clemens inserts a newspaper clipping of a speech he gave to the American Booksellers’ Association on 20 May, in which he recited the same statistics.
This accuracy has been conceded by Andrew Lang . . . from his verdict there is no appeal] Andrew Lang, a prominent British author and critic, was an expert on Joan of Arc, having published two books about her, in 1895 and 1906. He had reviewed Clemens’s Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc in the St. James Gazette on 18 May 1896. While acknowledging that the story had “errors in detail,” he enjoyed its portrait of Joan as “pure, perfect, adorable, unexampled in her life,” praising the author’s “modern rendering” because “his heart is in it”: “The colour is modern, the taste in humour and dialogue is Mississippian; the historic sense of time and manners is absent. But the book is honest, spirited, and stirring” (Budd 1999, 384–86; for Lang see AutoMT2 , 606 n. 348.1–3). In April 1908 Lang wrote a letter to Clemens (now lost) in which he harshly criticized a newly published biography of Joan by Anatole France, Vie de Jeanne d’Arc. According to Paine’s summary of the letter, Lang called France an “egregious ass” and accused him of following “every step of her physical career at the expense of her spiritual life, which he was inclined to cheapen.” Clemens replied on 25 April that he would wait for an English translation, but agreed to write an article ridiculing France’s book if Lang would—as he had offered—provide him with “a complete set of what the authorities say, and of what this amazing novelist says that they say” (25 Apr 1908 to Lang, MTL , 2:810–11; Lang to SLC, 4 May 1908, CU-MARK). No evidence has been found that Clemens actually attempted such an article, but Lang attacked France in a biography of his own, The Maid of France, published later in 1908 (see Searle 1976, 66).
when it appeared serially in Harper’s Monthly, I concealed the authorship] Joan of Arc was serialized in 1895–96 and published as a book in 1896. For Clemens’s concealment of his authorship see AutoMT2 , 353, 608–9 n. 353.10–19.
Jack Van Nostrand was among the excursionists . . . a hope which was disappointed] Clemens initially formed a poor impression of John A. Van Nostrand (1847?–79) of Greenville, New Jersey, and New York City but later grew to like the “good-hearted and always well-meaning” youngster ( N&J1 , 330; link note following 8 June 1867 to McComb, L2 , 64). Clemens describes his ill-fated business dealings with Daniel Slote, a blank-book manufacturer, in his Autobiographical Dictation of 24 May 1906 ( AutoMT2 , 55, 489 nn. 54.15–16 and 54.26, 490 n. 55.14–16). According to William R. Denny, a fellow Quaker City passenger, Slote had a “pretty face” and was a “though’er man of the world, and that harms no one if he can help it, clever to a fault.” Julius Moulton (1843?–1916), the son of a railroad engineer, wrote travel letters during the voyage to the St. Louis Missouri Republican. Clemens described him in 1907 as “quiet & rather diffident”; Denny noted that he was “tall, slender and kind” (Denny 1867, entry for 11 Sept; link note following 8 June 1867 to McComb, L2 , 64–65). Joshua William Davis (1840?–1900), a New York banker and stockbroker, established his own firm in 1874. Denny recorded that he was “more of a worldling than strict Christian . . . he is a good fellow, tries to please and agree with you without compremising his opinions” ( Richmond Census 1880, 923:359C; New York Times: “Copartnership Notices,” 1 Dec 1874, 10; “Death of Joshua W. Davis,” 24 Feb 1900, 7). William F. Church (b. 1819?), an insurance adjuster from Cincinnati, was appointed state insurance commissioner in 1872. According to Denny he had an “open good countenance and a lip that shows determination of purpose.” Church lectured on the excursion in March 1870; according to the Cincinnati Gazette, his story—“in a very different vein from the narrative of the humorist”—was “pleasantly and clearly told” (“A Cincinnatian’s Reminiscences of the Holy Land,” 23 Mar 1870, 2; Hamilton Census 1860, 974:284). In September 1867 these five men in Clemens’s “clique,” together with two others (Denny and Dr. George Birch), made a three-week side trip on horseback from Beirut to Damascus, then through Palestine to Jerusalem, and finally to Jaffa, where they rejoined the ship ( N&J1 , 373, 416–43).
a young journalist who visited us a year ago] Unidentified.
Source document.
TS1 Typescript, leaves numbered 2521–26, made from Hobby’s notes.TS1 is the only authoritative source for this dictation, including the letter ‘dating from Glasgow’ addressed to Isabel Lyon (235.18–45), the original of which has not been found. Clemens did not revise it.