Browse Catalogue About BookFlow Contact Us
" FAMOUS POLITICAL CARTOONSThomas Nast Biography rare 1904 book on CDROM
CDROM of Albert Bigelow Paine's classic "Th. NAST: HIS PERIOD AND HIS PICTURES", New York: The Macmillan Company, 1904. Profusely illustrated with political cartoons.
Perhaps the greatest, and certainly the most influential American cartoonist of the 19th century. Nast is famous for his Civil war era illustrations published in Harper's weekly, and for his attacks on the Tweed Ring.
Price: $9.99 (Shipping is Free)
Click to Add this CDROM to Shopping Cart
(You can always remove it later)
(You can always remove it later)
The CDROM of this classic book on Thomas Nast includes all 600 pages and all ~400 cartoons and illustrations. You will enjoy this CDROM pdf of the classic book including outstanding images of the fabulous cartoons.
Excellent for anyone interested in cartooning, journalism, editorial writing, graphic arts, computer graphics, political cartoons, political satire, political science, political activism, special interest groups, political campaigning, political advertising. CD-R is both Mac and Windows compatible. Includes convenient and complete thumbnail index of all pages, and ability to magnify and examine fine details. Unique gift!! FREE SHIPPING TO USA and CANADA. We ship internationally (worldwide) at actual shipping cost. 100% SATISFACTION GUARANTEED.
To order this CDROM, use PAYPAL Buttons above, or send $9.99 Check or Money order made out to "eBookCDROM" together with your shipping address to:
Nast 1904 CDROM
4521 Barrington Drive
Springfield, IL 62707
Thomas Nast (1840-1902) was an American caricaturist, illustrator, and painter, b. Landau, Germany. He was brought to the United States in 1846. He began his career as a draftsman for Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper and Harper's Weekly. He was sent to England by the New York Illustrated News, served (1860) as artist correspondent in Garibaldi's campaign, contributing sketches to English, French, and American papers, and attracted wide attention with his cartoons of the Civil War, published in Harper's Weekly. He is famous for his clever and forceful political and personal cartoons. These were instrumental in breaking the corrupt Tweed Ring in New York City. It was Nast who created the tiger, the elephant, and the donkey as political symbols of Tammany Hall, the Republican party, and the Democratic party. George Bush, Al Gore, Ralph Nader, Monica Lewinsky, Watergate, and Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton and any republican or democrat or independent would be fodder for his cartoons were Nast alive today. His cartoons could praise as well as criticize. Nast was also an illustrator of note and a painter in oil.
Excerpts from Albert Bigelow Paine, Th. Nast: His Period and His Pictures (New York: Macmillan, 1904). In March of 1873, Thomas Nast sailed for Europe for a vacation intended to improve his health. On the vessel with him was James Redpath, proprietor of the Boston Lyceum Bureau -- a lecture agency which later passed into the control of Major J. B. Pond. Redpath had been urging Nast to undertake a series of illustrated lectures during the coming season, and had taken passage on the same vessel for the express purpose of persuading the artist's acceptance of the idea. But the man of pictures was frightened at the thought of going before the public face to face. He finally agreed to consider the matter and to decide upon his return. Yet the more he considered, the greater became his alarm. Finally he pleaded as an excuse that he was thinking of accepting a foreign appointment, to which Redpath replied that he would consider the bargain closed, with the proviso that if his victim abandoned the appointment idea, he was to mount the lecture platform; thus leaving to the artist the old alternative of the frying-pan or the fire -- a condition not likely toease his already troubled state of mind. Nevertheless, his vacation was beneficial. He visited old friends in London, including W. L. Thomas, the London News engraver who had attended to collections and remittances for him during the Garibaldian and Civil War periods. From London the artist journeyed into Cornwall and made an extended visit at the home of Colonel Peard, where the old campaign was rehearsed, with its glories, its comedies and its results.... Nast saw Redpath again in London and gave a partial consent to the lecture idea. He agreed, if Mrs. Nast approved (his last hope of escape), to let the agent send out a hundred letters to as many managers in different cities, thus to ascertain if there was really a demand for him, which he was loth to believe. Redpath did not wait for further permission, but sailed at once for America to enter into correspondence with Mrs. Nast, and to begin the campaign. To say that the agent's expectations were fulfilled would be a mild statement. He had calculated on a possible one hundred nights, with a net return to the lecturer of as much as ten thousand dollars for the season. But the desire to look upon the man who had destroyed Tweed and helped to elect Grant -- to watch him use his deft crayon and "make faces" before their very eyes -- was more universal than even an enthusiastic Bureau Manager had dreamed. Engagements fairly poured in. Before Nast returned in June, his doom as a lecturer was sealed. By July the amount already guaranteed had far exceeded Redpath's most liberal calculations. Every day brought, from Redpath, some line or telegram of new triumphs. "Over thirteen thousand dollars already guaranteed," he wrote, "and the cry is still they come. You lead everybody except Gough.(1) Star of the evening, beautiful star! There is every reason to believe that you will be under the painful necessity of drawing twenty thousand dollars out of the pockets of your countrymen during the coming season. Are republics ungrateful? "Now you are in for it, put yourself under the best training at once. It would play the mischief if you should break down. You will speak five times a week and therefore should get yourself in the best physical condition. Put yourself under the best elocutionist, and practice all the time to strengthen your voice." The mental picture of himself not only writing a speech but continuously practicing its delivery doubtless amused the artist as much as the thought of going before an audience terrified him. He engaged James Parton(2) to prepare his subject matter, and for the rest of the summer lay under the trees studying it and planning a programme of the sketches he was to make -- "getting in condition" for the onset.... But though long postponed the inevitable must come at last. Summer waned and died, and with the advent of the entertainment season the first night of the Nast Lecture Series drew near. Long since, his schedule had been arranged, extending throughout the East and for a distance into the Middle West. His enterprising press agent had advertised him as the "Prince of Caricaturists," the "Destroyer of Tammany," and a multitude of loyal countrymen were waiting the day of his coming. But the "Prince" himself was in a bad way -- grievously frightened and half ill with the ordeal ahead. It was at Peabody, Massachusetts, on the evening of October 6th, 1873, that he made his beginning. To Redpath he said: "You got me into this scrape; you'll have to go on the platform with me." And this Redpath did, sitting in a chair close behind the artist. Yet it seemed a tragic occasion. Redpath confessed afterward that never in his long career had he seen a man so badly frightened. The hero who had laughed at the threats of desperate men and despised the censures and derision of the press, found his lips dry and his knees as water before an audience of admiring friends. He was ghastly pale and there were heavy beads of dew upon his brow. Perhaps in that dire moment Redpath had visions of the "twenty thousand profit" slipping away. Yet somehow the man of caricature got started. Somehow he got confidence -- somehow won the goodwill of the audience. The spectators sat breathless as they watched the pictures grow under his hand, while he told them something of his work and its beginnings. Nor did they fail to cheer as each sketch was completed, nor to applaud at the proper points of his address.(3) And so the thing was done -- the great beginning was made. The Peabody Press spoke in terms of praise of the entertainment, only suggesting that the lecturer speak a little louder in future, and this, with growing courage and confidence, he did. He had a natural faculty for impersonation. Often at home he had amused the juvenile members of the family with imitations of the French teacher and eccentric callers. This talent now came in good play, and added to the success of his exhibitions. Early in November he was in Boston, with a crowded house at Tremont Hall, by which time he had gained sufficient courage to have Mrs. Nast present, though Redpath had discouraged this idea. On the 18th he reached New York City, where, at Steinway Hall (in the language of the Tribune, which would appear to have become friendly once more), "his audience filled every inch of space." Of the New York papers, only the Herald was inclined to ridicule the cartoonist's efforts in the lecture field. Mr. Bennett, who perhaps felt that he must have revenge for the Caesarism caricatures, started a mock subscription for the indigent artist who was "obliged to go abroad in the land to relieve his family from want." "The Blackboard Martyr," "Neglected Nast," "Abandoned Thomas," "A Distressed Artist," these were some of the headings of this daily hoax column, and letters of pseudo-commiseration and crocodile lamentation were printed from day to day, with a list of the articles contributed -- old shoes, broken umbrellas, cancelled postage stamps, bad pennies and sometimes a few cents of genuine money. "Shoo, Fly!" Those were the good old days of give and take personalities, and Bennett enjoyed hugely this successful burlesque, which he kept going far a considerable period. In one issue the Herald facetiously likened Nast's entertainment to Dan Bryant's celebrated singing of "Shoo, Fly!" which suggested to Nast his only reply -- a small cartoon entitled "Shoo, Fly!" in which he depicted himself as brushing away the Herald insect, while a caricature of the "Caesar Ghost," a caricature of a caricature, appears on the blackboard near at hand. All this was good advertising for the lectures, had they needed it. But they did not. The name of Nast was enough. For seven months he went up and down the land in a continuous march of triumph. The wildest financial estimates of Redpath had been doubled, and forty thousand dollars(4) was the increase when, in May, the long migration ceased. The mortgage on the home was no longer a thing of dread. The "Prince of Caricaturists" had become a comparatively rich man. Of course the delight of Redpath was unbounded. He had made his word doubly good, and he had earned a large commission for himself. In addition to the latter, Nast sent him a personal check for five hundred dollars -- a gift which Redpath at first regarded as a joke. Then one day it was suggested to him that he try to cash it. He did so and found it a better joke than he had thought. No one ever had played so good a joke on him before.... In 1877, a conflict erupted between Thomas Nast and Harper's over the latter's rejection of one of Nast's cartoons. Nothing by Nast was published in the magazine for almost four months, and rumors circulated that Nast had left the magazine. Meantime, letters continued to come, some of them with offers of positions -- two of these being from the Daily Graphic and Leslie's Weekly;... from Major Pond came frequent and urgent invitations to go out once more and harvest in the field of the public lecture. In one letter Pond offers a guarantee of twenty thousand dollars for the season. In another he promises a thousand dollars a week and all expenses paid, this arrangement to continue for one week, or as many as the artist will agree upon. "Why can't you send us just one word?" he wrote, in a final appeal. "Just the word 'yes' will do. Our Lyceums all want you. The cry is 'Nast! Nast!' and we can give them no Nast. Can't you put in about ten weeks and take ten thousand dollars for it? I have tried to get to see you, but have been called home both times. Hoping you are well and in good spirits, with kind regards, "Yours truly, "J. B. Pond." Mark Twain, who was planning a personally conducted tour of his own, made what would seem to have been a still more alluring proposition. My dear Nast: I did not think I should ever stand on a platform again until the time was come for me to say "I die innocent." But the same old offers keep arriving. I have declined them all, just as usual, though sorely tempted, as usual. Now, I do not decline because I mind talking to an audience, but because (1) travelling alone is so heart-breakingly dreary, and (2) shouldering the whole show is such a cheer-killing responsibility. Therefore, I now propose to you what you proposed to me in November, 1867, ten years ago (when I was unknown), viz., that you stand on the platform and make pictures, and I stand by you and blackguard the audience. I should enormously enjoy meandering around (to big towns -- don't want to go to the little ones) -- with you for company. My idea is not to fatten the lecture agents and lyceums on the spoils, but put all the ducats religiously into two equal piles, and say to the artist and lecturer, "Absorb these." For instance -- (here follows a plan and a possible list of cities to be visited). The letter continues: Call the gross receipts $100,000 for four months and a half, and the profit from $60,000 to $75,000 (I try to make the figures large enough, and leave it to the public to reduce them). I did not put in Philadelphia because P---- owns that town, and last winter when I made a little reading-trip he only paid me $300 and pretended his concert (I read fifteen minutes in the midst of a concert) cost him a vast sum, and so he couldn't afford any more. I could get up a better concert with a barrel of cats. I have imagined two or three pictures and concocted the accompanying remarks to see how the thing would go. I was charmed. Well, you think it over, Nast, and drop me a line. We should have some fun. Yours truly, Samuel L. Clemens. Certainly this would seem to have been a fascinating plan. But Nast had no inclination for the lecture field at this period, at least he did not wish to close an engagement to travel, unless the Harper problem remained too long unsolved.... At frequent intervals Major Pond renewed his endeavors to induce Nast to return to the lecture platform. Hathaway and Pond was the style of the lecture firm at this time, successors to the Redpath Lyceum Bureau. A single letter will convey an idea of the temptations in this direction with which the artist was still beset: Boston, June 6, 1878. My Dear Mr. Nast: Beecher said the other day, "Nast is a statesman." We want just such a statesman as you to lecture next season. Can't you be prevailed upon to give us a month -- a week -- a day? We will give you $300 a night for four or six weeks, and if you can give us the season we will make it as much of an object as possible. We will do everything that can be done to make your travels easy, and we will make no more nights a week than you can comfortably fill. I will go with you and take all the care of you that can be taken, will make your yoke easy and your burden light for you; and heavy for me as you like. Please reply yes. Kind regards to Mrs. Nast and the little folks. Faithfully yours, J. B. Pond. It would seem hard to have resisted such offers as these, especially as the cartoonist could have continued his work in the Weekly, the publishers being more than willing that he should be thus brought in personal contact with their public. Yet he did not go. Money matters were easy with him, and the long travel and broken sleep were not to his taste. More than all, he was unhappy away from his home and family, in which he found ever his greatest comfort.... In 1884, Nast's financial situation was not as secure as it had been in the late 1870s and he decided to make another lecture tour. His entire savings had been swept away, leaving him only his home. Neither was his income what it had been in previous years, while his expense had not much abated. He resolved, therefore, to undertake a second lecture tour, for the purpose of restoring in some measure his fallen fortunes. Major Pond had continued at intervals to bombard him with offers and appeals. In January, 1879, he had written: Is it worth while for me to pay you a visit to tell you the astounding fact that we are prepared to offer you a larger sum for a hundred lectures than any man living? Also to tell you how loudly the public are clamoring for you? I will go lay the matter before you, if you are come-at-able. Again in October, 1883, Pond sent a characteristic word: Have you anything to say why judgment of lecturing should not be passed upon you? Finally, in the summer of 1884, Major Pond, having dissolved with Hathaway, and established himself in New York, wrote, assuring the cartoonist that he could make another season as great as the first, if he only would return to the platform. Had Nast yielded and placed himself in Pond's hands at this time, he might have made a greater financial success than he did. His ideas, however, were otherwise. He returned to the old plan, proposed to Mark Twain in 1867, and ten years later proposed by Mark Twain to him, that of making pictures to illustrate another man's address. He arranged with an English impersonator, Walter Pelham, for this part of the entertainment, and under the management of Hathaway, the legitimate successor of his old agent and friend, Redpath, the two were booked for an extended tour. Thomas Nast, Jr., now grown to man's estate, was press agent and general manager in charge.... Nast's own tour extended this time throughout the East, and as far west as Lincoln, Nebraska. As before, it was almost a continuous ovation, though there were not lacking those who were anxious to make him feel his political change. The entertainment given by Nast and Pelham was a rather pretentious affair. There was a regular programme, which was frequently varied to suit the conditions. A popular feature was the description by Pelham of some scene or personage, while Nast rapidly illustrated his sentences. The performance usually ended with scenes in color, by Nast, who frequently painted them top-side down, then suddenly reversed them with startling effect. The Nast-Pelham show was highly popular and regarded everywhere as a great success. Financially it did not equal the venture of eleven years before. The receipts were not much less, but the expenses were far greater. The record shows a nightly return of from two to four hundred dollars, and at one point a thousand dollars for two nights. On the whole it was a fairly profitable venture, the more so that the Harper contributions had continued throughout.
Copyright © 1997 - 2008 Bookflow Media LLC. All Rights Reserved. By using the Website, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms of Use.
Home | Catalogue | Ordering Information | About Us | Contact Us | Terms of Use
Excellent for anyone interested in cartooning, journalism, editorial writing, graphic arts, computer graphics, political cartoons, political satire, political science, political activism, special interest groups, political campaigning, political advertising. CD-R is both Mac and Windows compatible. Includes convenient and complete thumbnail index of all pages, and ability to magnify and examine fine details. Unique gift!! FREE SHIPPING TO USA and CANADA. We ship internationally (worldwide) at actual shipping cost. 100% SATISFACTION GUARANTEED.
To order this CDROM, use PAYPAL Buttons above, or send $9.99 Check or Money order made out to "eBookCDROM" together with your shipping address to:
4521 Barrington Drive
Springfield, IL 62707
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thomas Nast (1840-1902) was an American caricaturist, illustrator, and painter, b. Landau, Germany. He was brought to the United States in 1846. He began his career as a draftsman for Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper and Harper's Weekly. He was sent to England by the New York Illustrated News, served (1860) as artist correspondent in Garibaldi's campaign, contributing sketches to English, French, and American papers, and attracted wide attention with his cartoons of the Civil War, published in Harper's Weekly. He is famous for his clever and forceful political and personal cartoons. These were instrumental in breaking the corrupt Tweed Ring in New York City. It was Nast who created the tiger, the elephant, and the donkey as political symbols of Tammany Hall, the Republican party, and the Democratic party. George Bush, Al Gore, Ralph Nader, Monica Lewinsky, Watergate, and Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton and any republican or democrat or independent would be fodder for his cartoons were Nast alive today. His cartoons could praise as well as criticize. Nast was also an illustrator of note and a painter in oil.
Excerpts from Albert Bigelow Paine, Th. Nast: His Period and His Pictures (New York: Macmillan, 1904). In March of 1873, Thomas Nast sailed for Europe for a vacation intended to improve his health. On the vessel with him was James Redpath, proprietor of the Boston Lyceum Bureau -- a lecture agency which later passed into the control of Major J. B. Pond. Redpath had been urging Nast to undertake a series of illustrated lectures during the coming season, and had taken passage on the same vessel for the express purpose of persuading the artist's acceptance of the idea. But the man of pictures was frightened at the thought of going before the public face to face. He finally agreed to consider the matter and to decide upon his return. Yet the more he considered, the greater became his alarm. Finally he pleaded as an excuse that he was thinking of accepting a foreign appointment, to which Redpath replied that he would consider the bargain closed, with the proviso that if his victim abandoned the appointment idea, he was to mount the lecture platform; thus leaving to the artist the old alternative of the frying-pan or the fire -- a condition not likely toease his already troubled state of mind. Nevertheless, his vacation was beneficial. He visited old friends in London, including W. L. Thomas, the London News engraver who had attended to collections and remittances for him during the Garibaldian and Civil War periods. From London the artist journeyed into Cornwall and made an extended visit at the home of Colonel Peard, where the old campaign was rehearsed, with its glories, its comedies and its results.... Nast saw Redpath again in London and gave a partial consent to the lecture idea. He agreed, if Mrs. Nast approved (his last hope of escape), to let the agent send out a hundred letters to as many managers in different cities, thus to ascertain if there was really a demand for him, which he was loth to believe. Redpath did not wait for further permission, but sailed at once for America to enter into correspondence with Mrs. Nast, and to begin the campaign. To say that the agent's expectations were fulfilled would be a mild statement. He had calculated on a possible one hundred nights, with a net return to the lecturer of as much as ten thousand dollars for the season. But the desire to look upon the man who had destroyed Tweed and helped to elect Grant -- to watch him use his deft crayon and "make faces" before their very eyes -- was more universal than even an enthusiastic Bureau Manager had dreamed. Engagements fairly poured in. Before Nast returned in June, his doom as a lecturer was sealed. By July the amount already guaranteed had far exceeded Redpath's most liberal calculations. Every day brought, from Redpath, some line or telegram of new triumphs. "Over thirteen thousand dollars already guaranteed," he wrote, "and the cry is still they come. You lead everybody except Gough.(1) Star of the evening, beautiful star! There is every reason to believe that you will be under the painful necessity of drawing twenty thousand dollars out of the pockets of your countrymen during the coming season. Are republics ungrateful? "Now you are in for it, put yourself under the best training at once. It would play the mischief if you should break down. You will speak five times a week and therefore should get yourself in the best physical condition. Put yourself under the best elocutionist, and practice all the time to strengthen your voice." The mental picture of himself not only writing a speech but continuously practicing its delivery doubtless amused the artist as much as the thought of going before an audience terrified him. He engaged James Parton(2) to prepare his subject matter, and for the rest of the summer lay under the trees studying it and planning a programme of the sketches he was to make -- "getting in condition" for the onset.... But though long postponed the inevitable must come at last. Summer waned and died, and with the advent of the entertainment season the first night of the Nast Lecture Series drew near. Long since, his schedule had been arranged, extending throughout the East and for a distance into the Middle West. His enterprising press agent had advertised him as the "Prince of Caricaturists," the "Destroyer of Tammany," and a multitude of loyal countrymen were waiting the day of his coming. But the "Prince" himself was in a bad way -- grievously frightened and half ill with the ordeal ahead. It was at Peabody, Massachusetts, on the evening of October 6th, 1873, that he made his beginning. To Redpath he said: "You got me into this scrape; you'll have to go on the platform with me." And this Redpath did, sitting in a chair close behind the artist. Yet it seemed a tragic occasion. Redpath confessed afterward that never in his long career had he seen a man so badly frightened. The hero who had laughed at the threats of desperate men and despised the censures and derision of the press, found his lips dry and his knees as water before an audience of admiring friends. He was ghastly pale and there were heavy beads of dew upon his brow. Perhaps in that dire moment Redpath had visions of the "twenty thousand profit" slipping away. Yet somehow the man of caricature got started. Somehow he got confidence -- somehow won the goodwill of the audience. The spectators sat breathless as they watched the pictures grow under his hand, while he told them something of his work and its beginnings. Nor did they fail to cheer as each sketch was completed, nor to applaud at the proper points of his address.(3) And so the thing was done -- the great beginning was made. The Peabody Press spoke in terms of praise of the entertainment, only suggesting that the lecturer speak a little louder in future, and this, with growing courage and confidence, he did. He had a natural faculty for impersonation. Often at home he had amused the juvenile members of the family with imitations of the French teacher and eccentric callers. This talent now came in good play, and added to the success of his exhibitions. Early in November he was in Boston, with a crowded house at Tremont Hall, by which time he had gained sufficient courage to have Mrs. Nast present, though Redpath had discouraged this idea. On the 18th he reached New York City, where, at Steinway Hall (in the language of the Tribune, which would appear to have become friendly once more), "his audience filled every inch of space." Of the New York papers, only the Herald was inclined to ridicule the cartoonist's efforts in the lecture field. Mr. Bennett, who perhaps felt that he must have revenge for the Caesarism caricatures, started a mock subscription for the indigent artist who was "obliged to go abroad in the land to relieve his family from want." "The Blackboard Martyr," "Neglected Nast," "Abandoned Thomas," "A Distressed Artist," these were some of the headings of this daily hoax column, and letters of pseudo-commiseration and crocodile lamentation were printed from day to day, with a list of the articles contributed -- old shoes, broken umbrellas, cancelled postage stamps, bad pennies and sometimes a few cents of genuine money. "Shoo, Fly!" Those were the good old days of give and take personalities, and Bennett enjoyed hugely this successful burlesque, which he kept going far a considerable period. In one issue the Herald facetiously likened Nast's entertainment to Dan Bryant's celebrated singing of "Shoo, Fly!" which suggested to Nast his only reply -- a small cartoon entitled "Shoo, Fly!" in which he depicted himself as brushing away the Herald insect, while a caricature of the "Caesar Ghost," a caricature of a caricature, appears on the blackboard near at hand. All this was good advertising for the lectures, had they needed it. But they did not. The name of Nast was enough. For seven months he went up and down the land in a continuous march of triumph. The wildest financial estimates of Redpath had been doubled, and forty thousand dollars(4) was the increase when, in May, the long migration ceased. The mortgage on the home was no longer a thing of dread. The "Prince of Caricaturists" had become a comparatively rich man. Of course the delight of Redpath was unbounded. He had made his word doubly good, and he had earned a large commission for himself. In addition to the latter, Nast sent him a personal check for five hundred dollars -- a gift which Redpath at first regarded as a joke. Then one day it was suggested to him that he try to cash it. He did so and found it a better joke than he had thought. No one ever had played so good a joke on him before.... In 1877, a conflict erupted between Thomas Nast and Harper's over the latter's rejection of one of Nast's cartoons. Nothing by Nast was published in the magazine for almost four months, and rumors circulated that Nast had left the magazine. Meantime, letters continued to come, some of them with offers of positions -- two of these being from the Daily Graphic and Leslie's Weekly;... from Major Pond came frequent and urgent invitations to go out once more and harvest in the field of the public lecture. In one letter Pond offers a guarantee of twenty thousand dollars for the season. In another he promises a thousand dollars a week and all expenses paid, this arrangement to continue for one week, or as many as the artist will agree upon. "Why can't you send us just one word?" he wrote, in a final appeal. "Just the word 'yes' will do. Our Lyceums all want you. The cry is 'Nast! Nast!' and we can give them no Nast. Can't you put in about ten weeks and take ten thousand dollars for it? I have tried to get to see you, but have been called home both times. Hoping you are well and in good spirits, with kind regards, "Yours truly, "J. B. Pond." Mark Twain, who was planning a personally conducted tour of his own, made what would seem to have been a still more alluring proposition. My dear Nast: I did not think I should ever stand on a platform again until the time was come for me to say "I die innocent." But the same old offers keep arriving. I have declined them all, just as usual, though sorely tempted, as usual. Now, I do not decline because I mind talking to an audience, but because (1) travelling alone is so heart-breakingly dreary, and (2) shouldering the whole show is such a cheer-killing responsibility. Therefore, I now propose to you what you proposed to me in November, 1867, ten years ago (when I was unknown), viz., that you stand on the platform and make pictures, and I stand by you and blackguard the audience. I should enormously enjoy meandering around (to big towns -- don't want to go to the little ones) -- with you for company. My idea is not to fatten the lecture agents and lyceums on the spoils, but put all the ducats religiously into two equal piles, and say to the artist and lecturer, "Absorb these." For instance -- (here follows a plan and a possible list of cities to be visited). The letter continues: Call the gross receipts $100,000 for four months and a half, and the profit from $60,000 to $75,000 (I try to make the figures large enough, and leave it to the public to reduce them). I did not put in Philadelphia because P---- owns that town, and last winter when I made a little reading-trip he only paid me $300 and pretended his concert (I read fifteen minutes in the midst of a concert) cost him a vast sum, and so he couldn't afford any more. I could get up a better concert with a barrel of cats. I have imagined two or three pictures and concocted the accompanying remarks to see how the thing would go. I was charmed. Well, you think it over, Nast, and drop me a line. We should have some fun. Yours truly, Samuel L. Clemens. Certainly this would seem to have been a fascinating plan. But Nast had no inclination for the lecture field at this period, at least he did not wish to close an engagement to travel, unless the Harper problem remained too long unsolved.... At frequent intervals Major Pond renewed his endeavors to induce Nast to return to the lecture platform. Hathaway and Pond was the style of the lecture firm at this time, successors to the Redpath Lyceum Bureau. A single letter will convey an idea of the temptations in this direction with which the artist was still beset: Boston, June 6, 1878. My Dear Mr. Nast: Beecher said the other day, "Nast is a statesman." We want just such a statesman as you to lecture next season. Can't you be prevailed upon to give us a month -- a week -- a day? We will give you $300 a night for four or six weeks, and if you can give us the season we will make it as much of an object as possible. We will do everything that can be done to make your travels easy, and we will make no more nights a week than you can comfortably fill. I will go with you and take all the care of you that can be taken, will make your yoke easy and your burden light for you; and heavy for me as you like. Please reply yes. Kind regards to Mrs. Nast and the little folks. Faithfully yours, J. B. Pond. It would seem hard to have resisted such offers as these, especially as the cartoonist could have continued his work in the Weekly, the publishers being more than willing that he should be thus brought in personal contact with their public. Yet he did not go. Money matters were easy with him, and the long travel and broken sleep were not to his taste. More than all, he was unhappy away from his home and family, in which he found ever his greatest comfort.... In 1884, Nast's financial situation was not as secure as it had been in the late 1870s and he decided to make another lecture tour. His entire savings had been swept away, leaving him only his home. Neither was his income what it had been in previous years, while his expense had not much abated. He resolved, therefore, to undertake a second lecture tour, for the purpose of restoring in some measure his fallen fortunes. Major Pond had continued at intervals to bombard him with offers and appeals. In January, 1879, he had written: Is it worth while for me to pay you a visit to tell you the astounding fact that we are prepared to offer you a larger sum for a hundred lectures than any man living? Also to tell you how loudly the public are clamoring for you? I will go lay the matter before you, if you are come-at-able. Again in October, 1883, Pond sent a characteristic word: Have you anything to say why judgment of lecturing should not be passed upon you? Finally, in the summer of 1884, Major Pond, having dissolved with Hathaway, and established himself in New York, wrote, assuring the cartoonist that he could make another season as great as the first, if he only would return to the platform. Had Nast yielded and placed himself in Pond's hands at this time, he might have made a greater financial success than he did. His ideas, however, were otherwise. He returned to the old plan, proposed to Mark Twain in 1867, and ten years later proposed by Mark Twain to him, that of making pictures to illustrate another man's address. He arranged with an English impersonator, Walter Pelham, for this part of the entertainment, and under the management of Hathaway, the legitimate successor of his old agent and friend, Redpath, the two were booked for an extended tour. Thomas Nast, Jr., now grown to man's estate, was press agent and general manager in charge.... Nast's own tour extended this time throughout the East, and as far west as Lincoln, Nebraska. As before, it was almost a continuous ovation, though there were not lacking those who were anxious to make him feel his political change. The entertainment given by Nast and Pelham was a rather pretentious affair. There was a regular programme, which was frequently varied to suit the conditions. A popular feature was the description by Pelham of some scene or personage, while Nast rapidly illustrated his sentences. The performance usually ended with scenes in color, by Nast, who frequently painted them top-side down, then suddenly reversed them with startling effect. The Nast-Pelham show was highly popular and regarded everywhere as a great success. Financially it did not equal the venture of eleven years before. The receipts were not much less, but the expenses were far greater. The record shows a nightly return of from two to four hundred dollars, and at one point a thousand dollars for two nights. On the whole it was a fairly profitable venture, the more so that the Harper contributions had continued throughout.
Copyright © 1997 - 2008 Bookflow Media LLC. All Rights Reserved. By using the Website, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms of Use.
Home | Catalogue | Ordering Information | About Us | Contact Us | Terms of Use