The rest of the profits were to go to the Webster Company. Mark Twain was to get 70 per cent of the profits from his own books, except those already published, on which he was to get 60 per cent. The one I have before me runs from April 1885, to April 1890, and is “subject to the right of the party of the first part to dissolve the same as hereinafter expressed,” Under this contract, Webster was to have entire charge of the office, but he was not to make any contracts with any other authors for book publication without Mark Twain’s consent. The profits from this venture were not so large as Mark Twain had expected, and in 1884 he undertook to publish his own books, in partnership with my father.ĭuring their partnership there were six essentially similar contracts between Mark Twain and my father. The last of these books was Life on the Mississippi, which was manufactured by Osgood, with the author furnishing the capital. But Mark Twain was dissatisfied with the royalties. Hitherto Mark Twain’s books had been published by professional publishers - the earlier books by the American Publishing Company, and the three immediately preceding Huckleberry Finn by J. On this tour Mark Twain drew heavily on Huckleberry Finn, which was then completed but still unpublished. Webster & Company showed an average profit of better than a thousand dollars a week for the 1884 tour. Lecturing was always a lucrative business for Uncle Sam, much as he disliked it. Webster & Company, who acted as bankers for Mark Twain. Pond, arranged the itinerary, collected the fees, and transmitted the money to Charles L. Cable, who was hired by Mark Twain at a salary of $450 a week plus expenses, took turns in the reading. IN the autumn of 1884, Mark Twain was preparing to start on a four months’ lecture tour with George W. None of this correspondence has been published before.

Annie’s recollections and the hundreds of Mark Twain letters to her husband have been skillfully edited for the Atlantic by her son, Samuel Charles Webster. Webster, who for many years was to be Mark Twain’s publisher, man of business, and close friend. When Annie grew up, she married Charles L. Pamela’s daughter Annie, five years old at the time, fell in love with her dashing, chestnut-haired uncle Sam. WHEN Sam Clemens began his training as a river pilot, he made his home with his sister, Pamela Clemens Moffett, in St.

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