March 11 Friday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Francis P. Church. Sam offered to edit the humorous department of the Galaxy for $2,000 a year if they’d release copyright back to him upon publication. He claimed he could make that amount in two weeks of lecturing, a bit of a stretcher. Church and his brother William had offered $2,400 a year but retention of copyright [MTL 4: 90-1]. Sam’s deal with the Galaxy broke new ground in the publishing industry by, in effect, “renting” pieces submitted rather than selling them. The Holy Land letters to the Alta, and the subsequent need to use them for Innocents Abroad had educated Sam [A. Hoffman 172].

Sam also wrote Bliss, allowing him to bid on the material the Galaxy wanted to publish and then use for a book. He added:

“I have a sort of vague half-notion of spending the summer in England. I could write a telling book. But we don’t like to leave our delightful nest even for a day. Have you heard yet what the possibilities are in the matter of selling our book there?” [MTL 4: 91].

Sam’s thoughts of a trip to England may have come from Jervis offering to pay for a European trip if Sam would give up smoking and drinking. No, Sam replied, he could not sell himself that way.