Property from the Estate of
ALAN L. WEINER
CLEMENS, SAMUEL LANGHORNE. Autograph letter signed ("S.L. Clemens") to Robert Underwood Johnson, associate editor of the Century magazine, Elmira, New York, 6 July 1885. 4 pages, 8vo, in blue ink on rectos of four sheets, two blank corners a trifle chipped.
Details
CLEMENS, SAMUEL LANGHORNE. Autograph letter signed ("S.L. Clemens") to Robert Underwood Johnson, associate editor of the Century magazine, Elmira, New York, 6 July 1885. 4 pages, 8vo, in blue ink on rectos of four sheets, two blank corners a trifle chipped.
"SELL[ING] THE SAME CHAPTER OF 'HUCK FINN' TWICE
"I'm glad to be on the committee -- I mean as bric-a-brac -- but I calculate to let you boys do the work while I hog the glory...I feel perfectly sure Mr. [James Russell] Lowell will preside & make that speech. Have you approached him through [William Dean] Howells..." Clemens then launches into a humorous criticism of negative remarks about his business acumen: "No sir, don't you trepan any of those correspondents - let them alone. If they keep on, as they originally started, they will eventually convince everybody that I am the shrewdest, craftiest & most unscrupulous business-sharp in the country; & now that I am become a publisher, that is the kind of reputation I need. As long as those boys merely expose my lurid morals, they are doing me valuable commercial service & winning me a golden place in the admiration of my guild; but when they slander my common sense they injure me. That I should have no better business-wit than to knowingly & intentionally sell the same chapter of Huck Finn twice [to different periodicals], is calculated to make other publishers ashamed of me. They would know, perfectly well, that that is the sagacious thing to do when you've got only the one chapter, but they know it's the act of an ass when you've got thirty to choose from, & a customer at your elbow who isn't particular which chapter he gets so he gets one. Alas for the wisdom of this world!..."
Provenance: "Property of a California Collector" (sale, Sotheby's New York, 10 December 1993, lot 211).
"SELL[ING] THE SAME CHAPTER OF 'HUCK FINN' TWICE
"I'm glad to be on the committee -- I mean as bric-a-brac -- but I calculate to let you boys do the work while I hog the glory...I feel perfectly sure Mr. [James Russell] Lowell will preside & make that speech. Have you approached him through [William Dean] Howells..." Clemens then launches into a humorous criticism of negative remarks about his business acumen: "No sir, don't you trepan any of those correspondents - let them alone. If they keep on, as they originally started, they will eventually convince everybody that I am the shrewdest, craftiest & most unscrupulous business-sharp in the country; & now that I am become a publisher, that is the kind of reputation I need. As long as those boys merely expose my lurid morals, they are doing me valuable commercial service & winning me a golden place in the admiration of my guild; but when they slander my common sense they injure me. That I should have no better business-wit than to knowingly & intentionally sell the same chapter of Huck Finn twice [to different periodicals], is calculated to make other publishers ashamed of me. They would know, perfectly well, that that is the sagacious thing to do when you've got only the one chapter, but they know it's the act of an ass when you've got thirty to choose from, & a customer at your elbow who isn't particular which chapter he gets so he gets one. Alas for the wisdom of this world!..."
Provenance: "Property of a California Collector" (sale, Sotheby's New York, 10 December 1993, lot 211).