October 3 Saturday – At “Stormfield,” Isabel Lyon wrote for Sam to Miss Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942), author of Anne of Green Gables (1908):
Dear Miss Montgomery:
Mr. Clemens directs me to thank you for your charming book & says I may quote to you from his letter to Francis Wilson about it:
In “Anne of Green Gables” you will find the dearest & most moving & delightful child since the immortal Alice.
I am, / Yours, sincerely, I.V. Lyon … [MTP]. Note: see also Gribben 480.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Mrs. Blackmer came and this morning I had such a nice letter from Jervis Langdon congratulating me on my “good nerve” but I don’t deserve much credit for going down stairs that burglar night, because though I knew something was wrong, I had no idea that two burglars were in the house, and I wish I could get rid of the terror I still feel in my heels, when I fled up those stairs [MTP: IVL TS 68].
The Bobbs-Merrill Co. wrote to Sam sending a copy of Colonel Greatheart, by Henry Christopher Bailey (b. 1878), without obligation [MTP; Gribben 39]. Note: IVL: “Don’t believe I shall catch up with the books I have undertaken to read for a year. Hope to get at it some day or other”
C.T. Pardee for The Southern New England Telephone Co. wrote to Sam. “I have your letter of Sept. 8th in reference to a call from New York by Miss Clemens. I have looked up this matter thoroughly, and I think that no impertinence was intended. I have taken the matter up with our operators, however, and I hope there will be no further cause for complaint” [MTP]. Note: Twain was quick to react to any real or imagined slight to his daughters.
Samuel W. Sherman for the Emerson Literary Society, NYC wrote to Sam, noting that each year for the past five years they’d sent him an invitation to their Annual Reception and that each year he’d declined. Would he allow them to send a member down for a “10 or 15 minute” interview? [MTP].
Katherine Wylie wrote from Edinburgh, Scotland to advise Sam she was sending an album in which she was collecting author’s autographs. Since he was her favorite, would he allow this? [MTP].
October 3? Saturday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Francis Wilson. “In ‘Anne of Green Gables’ you will find the dearest & most moving & delightful child since the immortal Alice” [MTP: The Bookman Dec. 27, 1908]. Note: this quoted by Lyon on Oct. 3 to Miss Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of the book.