October 11 - December 10 - Lecture Tour in California and Nevada. "Sandwich Islands" 17 engagements. Partially managed by Denis McCarthy.
I launched out as a lecturer, now, with great boldness. I had the field all to myself, for public lectures were almost an unknown commodity in the Pacific market. They are not so rare, now, I suppose. I took an old personal friend along to play agent for me, and for two or three weeks we roamed through Nevada and California and had a very cheerful time of it.
It would appear from the accounts of Mark Twain's biographers and from Mark Twain's own account in Roughing It and elsewhere that the San Francisco lecture of October 2, 1866, was planned as an isolated event, and the the interval between the decision to lecture and the lecture itself was a matter of only a few days. It would also appear from these accounts that the lecture was planned without reference to any tour following it, and that it was only after the impressive success of that lecture the Mark Twain decided to go on tour. By thus focusing the spotlight upon his first appearance as a public lecturer, a truly momentous turing point in his career, the importance of the event can be dramatically highlighted. The probability is, however, that the decision to lecture in various California and Nevada towns was made in advance of October 2, and that by this date at least some of the arrangements had already been made or were in progress. (Lorch, p 35)