there to stay.

Yours ever,
MARK.

In the next letter we begin to get some idea of the size of Mark
Twain's first publishing venture, and a brief summary of results may
not be out of place here.

The Grant Life was issued in two volumes. In the early months of
the year when the agents' canvass was just beginning, Mark Twain,
with what seems now almost clairvoyant vision, prophesied a sale of
three hundred thousand sets. The actual sales ran somewhat more
than this number. On February 27, 1886, Charles L. Webster & Co.
paid to Mrs. Grant the largest single royalty check in the history
of book-publishing. The amount of it was two hundred thousand
dollars. Subsequent checks increased the aggregate return to
considerably more than double this figure. In a memorandum made by
Clemens in the midst of the canvass he wrote.

"During 100 consecutive days the sales (i. e., subscriptions) of
General Grant's book averaged 3,000 sets (6,000 single volumes) per
day: Roughly stated, Mrs. Grant's income during all that time was
$5,000 a day."

*****

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HOTEL NORMANDIE

NEW YORK, Dec. 2, '85.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I told Webster, this afternoon, to send you that
$2,000; but he is in such a rush, these first days of publication, that
he may possibly forget it; so I write lest I forget it too. Remind me,
if he should forget. When I postponed you lately, I did it because I
thought I should be cramped for money until January, but that has turned
out to be an error, so I hasten to cut short the postponement.

I judge by the newspapers that you are in Auburndale, but I don't know
it officially.

I've got the first volume launched safely; consequently, half of the
suspense is over, and I am that much nearer the goal. We've bound
and shipped 200,000 books; and by the 10th shall finish and ship the
remaining 125,000 of the first edition. I got nervous and came down to
help hump-up the binderies; and I mean to stay here pretty much all the
time till the first days of March, when the second volume will issue.
Shan't have so much trouble, this time, though, if we get to press
pretty soon, because we can get more binderies then than are to be
had in front