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Rough draft of letter June, 1911 . Houghton Mifflin Company, s Boston, Mass. I have been reading over my 1st vol. Auto
biography correcting and making slight changes. Your Mr. Scaife conveyed to me that your proposal was to pay me a royalty
of fifteen per cent. on the retail price, increasing to twenty after the sales of ten thousand copies. Excepting the 10,000
copies clause there terms are satisfactory. Should you feel able to assume the risk of changing the terms to 20 per cent,
on all copies sold, I shall send a corrected copy of the manuscript, and sign the contract without further delay. If not,
please send me the copy of the MS. left with you, and in any case, whatever luck may befall this first vol ume of my life
story, believe me, dear sirs, faithfully yours, John Muir Years ago, in reply to publishers letters concerning my Auto
biography I promised to allow several of them to read the M.S. before signing any contract. I now regret having placed myself
under these obligations, for I think that an author should select his publisher on more general grounds than a slight difference
in royalty. However, I have not mentioned your proposed terms to any other publisher. As to the magazine rights Mr. Scaife
told me that the Youth's Companion and Atlantic Magazine would pay about 750. This price seems far too small. I think it should
be at least l200. 05029