8 Chapter 7 Following the Equator

Chapter 7 Following the Equator "There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate: when he can't afford it, and when he can." —Mark Twain Mark Twain had started his own company in order to publish The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn himself. While Charles L. Webster & Company (named after Mark's nephew and business manager) took orders for the book, Mark went on a four-month lecture tour to earn money. Webster & Company didn't plan to publish books by other authors. But then Mark learned that former president and Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant was writing his memoirs. Mark offered Grant twice as much money as another publisher had. That clinched the deal. Grant put the finishing touches on his book just days before he died of cancer in 1885. The book was an instant

hit. Mark paid Grant's widow nearly $500,000 in profits. Grant's bestselling memoirs made Mark rich, too. "It seems to me that whatever I touch turns to gold," Mark marveled. America's most famous author turned fifty that year, and his future had never looked brighter.

该页暂无翻译

The family lived very well. They held elaborate dinners for important guests, including generals William T. Sherman and Philip Sheridan of Civil War fame. On Friday evenings, Mark's friends gathered in his third-floor study to drink, smoke cigars, and play Mark's favorite game, billiards.

The wild success of Grant's memoirs convinced Mark Twain that book publishing was a better way than writing to make lots of money. He signed Sherman, Sheridan, and others to write books for Charles L. Webster & Company. But none of those books became bestsellers like Grant's.

Mark Twain was a brilliant writer, but he was a terrible businessman. It was the age of new inventions; but unfortunately, Mark Twain invested thousands of dollars in all the wrong ones—a steam pulley, a marine telegraph, a mechanical organ, and about one hundred others. Alexander Graham Bell gave Mark Twain the chance to invest in the telephone, but he said no. He didn't think the telephone would catch on with many people.