The book was published in July, 1869, and its success was immediate and abundant.  On his wedding-day, February 2, 1870, Clemens received a check from his publishers for more than four thousand dollars, royalty accumulated during the three months preceding.  The sales soon amounted to more than fifty thousand copies, and had increased to very nearly one hundred thousand at the end of the first three years.  It was a book of travel, its lowest price three dollars and fifty cents.  Even with our increased reading population no such sale is found for a book of that description to-day.  And the Innocents Abroad holds its place—­still outsells every other book in its particular field. [This in 1917.  D.W.]

Mark Twain now decided to settle down.  He had bought an interest in the Express, of Buffalo, New York, and took up his residence in that city in a house presented to the young couple by Mr. Langdon.  It did not prove a fortunate beginning.  Sickness, death, and trouble of many kinds put a blight on the happiness of their first married year and gave, them a distaste for the home in which they had made such a promising start.  A baby boy, Langdon Clemens, came along in November, but he was never a strong child.  By the end of the following year the Clemenses had arranged for a residence in Hartford, temporary at first, later made permanent.  It was in Hartford that little Langdon died, in 1872.

Clemens, meanwhile, had sold out his interest in the Express, severed his connection with the Galaxy, a magazine for which he was doing a department each month, and had written a second book for the American Publishing Company, Roughing It, published in 1872.  In August of the same year he made a trip to London, to get material for a book on England, but was too much sought after, too continuously feted, to do any work.  He went alone, but in November returned with the purpose of taking Mrs. Clemens and the new baby, Susy, to England the following spring.  They sailed in April, 1873, and spent a good portion of the year in England and Scotland.  They returned to America in November, and Clemens hurried back to London alone to deliver a notable series of lectures under the management of George Dolby, formerly managing agent for Charles Dickens.  For two months Mark Twain lectured steadily to London audiences—­the big Hanover Square rooms always filled.  He returned to his family in January, 1874.

Meantime, a home was being built for them in Hartford, and in the autumn of 1874 they took up residence in ita happy residence, continued through seventeen years—­well-nigh perfect years.  Their summers they spent in Elmira, on Quarry Farm—­a beautiful hilltop, the home of Mrs. Clemens’s sister.  It was in Elmira that much of Mark Twain’s literary work was done.  He had a special study there, some distance from the house, where he loved to work out his fancies and put them into visible form.