Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 56, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 October 1916 — MARK TWAIN WAS WELL PAID [ARTICLE]

MARK TWAIN WAS WELL PAID

But It Was Only After the Humor* ist Had Become Famous. We are learning out of the articles written for the young readers of St. Nicholas by Mark Twain's friend and biographer and literary executor, Albert Biglow- Paine, a good deal more than ever came out before of the financial and business successes of the great American humorist. His methodical endeavor to pay off the debt he brought upon his publishing house made him the best paid author in America, perhaps in the world. His final arrangements with his regular publishers, Harper Bros., was that they should print whatever he wrote, the payment being 20 (later 30) cents a word. But he had been offered before that $1 a word for his writings and declined it. He also declined an offer for ten lectures at SI,OOO a night. He also declined SIO,OOO a year to lend his name as editor without doing the editing of a funny paper; again he declined SIO,OOO offered to him to say that a certain tobacco which he liked well enough was the very best, and he refused many other offers of money that did not agree with his literary conscience.—Boston Transcript.