December 19 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: I am hearing the very first words of the King’s Biography. AB is sitting here and reading them to me. The background of the book. The days that passed four months before the King was born. (He says 5 months before the King was born.) [MTP TS 121].

Thomas Bray wrote to Sam, referring to his prior request (Dec. 8) that a letter from Twain to President Garfield in behalf of Frederick Douglass be included in future segments of Sam’s Autobiography. To the reply that Clemens did not remember the letter, Bray enclosed “a copy of a copy” of it which he’d had for 26 years [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “Answd. Jan. 7 ‘08”