September 27 Thursday – In the evening at 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Ralph W. Ashcroft.
The Colonel [Harvey] has just gone. I expected he would not be willing that any but Harpers should issue the brochure, & he wasn’t.
He wants to put the 7 [photographs on being good] in the Xmas Weekly—a huge & elaborate number—& says he can print them perfectly; so I told him to go ahead. Miss Lyon is suffering a severe nervous collapse [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: “AB came out & made out checks for me & cleared up a lot of work. We did the work in the living room. I on the couch, he scribbling away beside me, occasionally giving the fire a poke” [MTP TS 122].
Miss Anne W. Stockbridge wrote from Yarmouth, Maine to Sam, nonplussed that a letter to Sam (handed first to her brother of the University Club in Boston), had been published in the newspaper without the names suppressed. In the published letter she suggested a topic for his talk at the Assoc. Press dinner [MTP].
Brander Matthews wrote to Sam. “That was a most persuasive speech you made to the Ass Press. / The Ex. Com. Of he Simplified Spelling Board, at its meeting yesterday, unanimously requested you to allow us to issue it as one of our documents. / Can you revise it for publication?” [MTP].
Dr. Clarence C. Rice wrote to Isabel Lyon.
Will you please remind Mr. Clemens of his promise to send one of his photographs for Miss Edna May, the Actress.
Miss May is a great admirer of Mr. Clemens and I promised her I would get the photograph, with his autograph—I hope you are all well / Very Truly Yours [MTP]. Note: Edna May Pettie (1878-1948), actress, singer, and post card beauty.
Two copies of The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1906) were deposited with the Copyright Office on this day, the first edition being published this month [Hirst, “A Note on the Text” Afterword materials p.21, Oxford ed. 1996].
September 27 ca. – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Mary B. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers, Jr.) crossways on Anne W. Stockbridge’s Sept. 27 letter: “You have seen those queer letters, Mary: well, this is the sequel—& not unfunny” [MTP].