September 11 Tuesday – In Etretat, France Sam began a letter to J. Henry Harper which he finished Sept. 12.

The MS [JA] arrived to-day [See Sept. 9 to Rogers], & I am sending word to Mr. Du Mond.

Will you make an order in writing & attach it to my MS., & sign it & back it with your whole authority, requiring the compositor & proof-reader to follow my copy EXACTLY, in every minute detail of punctuation, grammar, construction and (in the case of proper names) spelling). Please do it. I have revised that MS fully five times, & no proofreader is competent to teach me, after one look, how a thing ought to be which I have weighed & studied & examined five times.

I am thus urgent because I know that the Century proof-reader is insane on the subject of his duties, & it makes me afraid of all the guild.

Sam was glad to have the MS because he’d written a 1,200 word segment, which included a three-stanza song, that he wanted to put in one of the early chapters, and now didn’t have to guess where it might go. He also thanked Harper for the books he’d put in his stateroom on the voyage over [MTP].