The Tar Baby and the Tomahawk: Race and Ethnic Images in American Children's Literature, 1880-1939

You can argue yourself into the delusion that the principle of life is in the stories themselves & not in their setting; but you will save labor by stopping with that solitary convert, for [?] he is the only intelligent one you will bag. In reality the stories are only alligator pears — one merely eats them for the sake of the salad-dressing. Uncle Remus is most deftly drawn, & is a lovable & delightful creation; he, & the little boy, & their relations with each other, are right fine literature & worthy to live for their own sakes, & certainly
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the stories are not to be credited with them. But enough of this; I seem to be proving to the man that made the multiplication table that twice one are two.

I have been thinking, yesterday & today, (plenty of chance to think, as I am abed with lumbago at our little summering farm among the solitudes of the mountain top,) & I have concluded that I can answer one of your questions with full confidence — thus: Make it a subscription book. Mighty few books that come strictly under the head of literature will sell by subscription; but
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if Uncle Remus won’t, the gift of prophecy has departed out of me. When a book will sell by subscription, it will sell two or three times as many copies as it would in the trade; & the profit is bulkier because the retail price is greater.

You did not ask me about royalties; still, I will [?] give you a hint, free of charge, which I wish somebody had sold to me for a hundred thousand dollars ten years ago: Make your book at your own expense & pay some publisher ten percent to sell it for you. On a sale of 50,000 copies this will pay your publisher $15,000 & yourself $35,000 or close upon it. [But keep these secrets to yourself.]
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You didn’t ask me for a subscription publisher. If you had, I should have recommended Osgood to you. He inaugurates his subscription department with my new book in the fall…I couldn’t recommend my former publisher to anybody, except an enemy.

The question which you did ask — to saving all new matter for your new book, [?] Instead of first staking the bloom off it in the magazines, etc., I am a little afraid to answer. Osgood can answer that. He will know. — You can ask him; or I will, just as you please. He will arrive from Europe 21st of this month. The fact that you are not offering him the book won’t
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make any differences. There's nothing small about Osgood. He will answer with pleasure, & give his best judgment — Then you can compare it with the opinion of the publisher whom you shall eventually choose, & adopt the suggestion which seems to be soundest.

My idea would be to print one yarn in the magazine every 3 months & thus keep before the public & at the same time keep the public unsatisfied; but I wouldn't let them have such generous meals as you have been giving them. — For the ficklest people in the world are the public.

Now the doctor has been
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here & tried to interrupt my yarn about the Golden Arm, but I've got through anyway.

Of course I tell it in the negro dialect — that is necessary; but I have not written it so, for I can't spell it in your matchless way. It is marvelous the way you & Cable spell the negro & creole dialects.

[?] Two grand features are lost in print: the wierd​ wailing, the rising & falling cadences of the wind, so easily mimicked with one's mouth; & the impressive pauses & eloquent silences, & subdued utterances, toward the end of the yarn (which chain the attention of the children hand & foot, &
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they sit with parted lips & breathless, to be wrenched limb from limb with the sudden & appalling "You got it!") I have so gradually & impressively worked up the last act, with a "grown" audience, as to create a rapt & intense stillness; & then made them jump clear out of their skins, almost, with the final shout. It's a lovely story to tell.

Old Uncle Dan'l, a slave of my uncle's aged 60, used to tell us children yarns every night by the kitchen fire (no other light), & the last yarn demanded every night was this one. By this time there was
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but a ghostly blaze or two flickering about the back-log. We would huddle close about the old man, & begin to shudder with the first familiar words; & under the spell of his impressive delivery we always fell a prey to that climax at the end when the rigid black shape in the twilight sprang at us with a shout.

When you come to glance at the tale you will recollect it — it is as common & familiar as The Tar Baby. Work up the atmosphere with your customary skill & it will "go" in print. Lumbago seems to make a body garrulous — but you'll forgive it.

S.L. Clemens