.

The book was to have been issued in the spring, but during his wanderings
proofs had been delayed, and there was now considerable anxiety about it,
as the agencies had become impatient for the canvass. At the end of
April Clemens wrote: "Your printers are doing well. I will hurry the
proofs"; but it was not until the early part of June that the last
chapters were revised and returned. Then the big book, at last
completed, went to press on an edition of twenty thousand, a large number
for any new book, even to-day.

In later years, through some confusion of circumstance, Mark Twain was
led to believe that the publication of The Innocents Abroad was long and
unnecessarily delayed. But this was manifestly a mistake. The book went
to press in June. It was a big book and a large edition. The first copy
was delivered July 20 (1869), and four hundred and seventeen bound
volumes were shipped that month. Even with the quicker mechanical
processes of to-day a month or more is allowed for a large book between
the final return of proofs and the date of publication. So it is only
another instance of his remembering, as he once quaintly put it, "the
thing that didn't happen."--[In an article in the North American Review
(September 21, 1906) Mr. Clemens stated that he found it necessary to
telegraph notice that he would bring suit if the book was not immediately
issued. In none of the letters covering this period is there any
suggestion of delay on the part of the publishers, and the date of the
final return of proofs, together with the date of publication, preclude
the possibility of such a circumstance. At some period of his life he
doubtless sent, or contemplated sending, such a message, and this fact,
through some curious psychology, became confused in his mind with the
first edition of The Innocents Abroad.]

LXXI

THE GREAT BOOK OF TRAVEL

'The Innocents Abroad' was a success from the start. The machinery for
its sale and delivery was in full swing by August 1, and five thousand
one hundred and seventy copies were disposed of that month--a number that
had increased to more than thirty-one thousand by the first of the year.
It was a book of travel; its lowest price was three and a half dollars.
No such record had been made by a book of that description; none has
equaled it since.--[One must recall that this was the record only up to
1910. D.W.]

If Mark Twain was not already famous, he was unquestionably famous no