It was during this winter that Mark wrote a number of humorous articles and sketches--'The Facts in the Case of the Great Beef Contract', the account of his resignation as clerk of the Senate Committee on Conchology, and 'Riley--Newspaper Correspondent'. His time was chiefly devoted to preparing the material for his book; but finding Washington too distracting, he returned to San Francisco and completed the manuscript therein July, 1868. For a year the publication of the book was delayed, as recorded in the Autobiography; but it finally appeared in print following Mark's indignant telegram to Bliss that, if the book was not on sale in twenty-four hours, he would bring suit for damages. Mark Twain records that in nine months the book had taken the publishing house out of debt, advanced its stock from twenty-five to two hundred, and left seventy thousand dollars clear profit. Eighty-five thousand copies were sold within sixteen months, the largest sale of a four dollar book ever achieved in America in so short a time up to that date. It is, miraculous to relate, still the leader in its own special field --a “bestseller” for forty years! The proprietors of the 'Alta California' were exceeding wroth when they heard that Clemens was preparing for publication the very letters which they had commissioned him to write and had printed in their own paper. They prepared to publish a cheap paper-covered edition of the letters, and sent the American Publishing Co. a challenge in the shape of an advance notice of their publication. Clemens hurried back to San Francisco from the East, and soon convinced the proprietors of the 'Alta California' of the authenticity of his copyright. The paper-covered edition was then and there abandoned forever. Before leaving the West to settle permanently in the East, Mark Twain was associated for a short time with the 'Overland Monthly', edited by Bret Harte. In his review of 'The Innocents Abroad', Harte asserted that Clemens deserved “to rank foremost among Western humorists”; but he was grievously disappointed in the first few contributions from Clemens to the Overland Monthly--notably 'By Rail through France' (later incorporated in The Innocents Abroad)--because of their perfect gravity. At last, 'A Mediaeval Romance'--a story which has been said to contain the germ of 'A Connecticut Yankee', because of its burlesque of mediaevalism--won the enthusiastic approval of Bret Harte.