September 8 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Chatto & Windus, acknowledging receipt of their Aug. 21 letter with notes for £986.10.5.

“It is true that Huck Finn has not treated you kindly, but it must be because the English people do not understand that dialect; for here, where the people do understand it, the book has sold more than 60,000 copies, at my usual high prices—$2.75 to $4.50 a copy.”

Sam noted that sales were also weak for Tauchnitz, his European publisher, due to his clientele being:

“…mainly traveling Englishmen & native Germans. That dialect would give these latter the belly-ache every time.”

Sam expressed sadness that Chatto would not be the English publisher for Grant’s Memoirs, writing, “It’s like going out of the family.” But he’d directed Webster to “get the best terms, & accept none other” [MTP].

Sam’s notebook contains an entry on Chatto’s notes sent to his banker, Bissell, for collection [3:185].

Sam also wrote a short note to Robert Underwood Johnson. Sam had finished the war article for the Century’s “Battles and Leaders of the Civil War” series, but Livy “confessed, under cross-examination, that she does not like that article yet.” Sam suggested it would:

…look like mighty poor weak stuff…in the smoke and thunder of the big guns all around it [MTP].

Henry Ward Beecher wrote (see Sept. 11 reply for content) [MTP].