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 of the holidays. One lives and learns. I find it takes 7 binderies four months to bind 325,000 books.
This is a good book to publish. I heard a canvasser say, yesterday, that while delivering eleven books he took 7 new subscriptions. But we shall be in a hell of a fix if that goes on—it will “ball up” the binderies again.
Yrs ever
MARK.
November 30th that year was Mark Twain's fiftieth birthday, an event
noticed by the newspapers generally, and especially observed by many
of his friends. Warner, Stockton and many others sent letters;
Andrew Lang contributed a fine poem; also Oliver Wendell. Holmes
—the latter by special request of Miss Gilder—for the Critic.
These attentions came as a sort of crowning happiness at the end of
a golden year. At no time in his life were Mark Twain's fortunes
and prospects brighter; he had a beautiful family and a perfect
home. Also, he had great prosperity. The reading-tour with Cable
had been a fine success. His latest book, The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn, had added largely to his fame and income.
The publication of the Grant Memoirs had been a dazzling triumph.
Mark Twain had become recognized, not only as America's most
distinguished author, but as its most envied publisher. And now,
with his fiftieth birthday, had come this laurel from Holmes, last
of the Brahmins, to add a touch of glory to all the rest. We feel
his exaltation in his note of acknowledgment.
To Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in Boston: