Litigating P&P Drama – Slowly Strangled by Paige – Readings for Charity
Copyright Cause – Howells’ Tragedy – Chang Riley & Eng Nye – Theo Crane Dies Baseball
Dinner – “Not a man, but a hog” – “No stoppage upon any pretext”
Pinkeyed Censor – Stedman & Beard – Elsie Leslie – Connecticut Yankee Published

1889 – A promotional leaflet, “Ontario Beach, An Open Letter to Mark Twain,” was published by Wynkoop, Hallenbeck & Co. of New York. From a listing in the Sept. 1998 issue of Firsts:
The Book Collector’s Magazine:
“Promotional leaflet, accordion folded. This advertising piece prints the purported text of a letter from John Phoenix (the pen name of George H. Derby, a friend of Twain and fellow humorist) to Mark Twain, extolling the virtues of this resort. Derby died in 1861” [47].

Managing Editor of The Philadelphia Press sent Sam an “Author’s Questionaire,” which was apparently sent only to the top four people in each field of endeavor, Twain being one of the top four authors. The printed form asked: “Press readers will be much interested to have you write out below, as fully or briefly as you please, what (1) circumstances, or (2) personal quality, or gift has chiefly contributed to our success in life.” Sam wrote “1. I have published infrequently, & have burnt more manuscript that I have printed.” To the second question, “Good Humor” [MTP].

Sometime during the year Sam wrote a response-letter to D.B. Ellis that was printed in the Paris (Mo.?) Mercury on Aug. 23:
I should not be able to use the quilt, nor very easily find room for it in our overcrowded house, but I enclose ten dollars to be used in helping to buy it for someone there on the spot who needs it and would be glad to have the comfort of it on cold winter nights [MTP].

In Hartford Sam also wrote to Augustin Daly sometime during the year suggesting a system for reserving seats for them at his theater. Daly often sent tickets or invitations to various performances. Sam was “laid up these days” and so could not attend. He complained they rarely could get free to travel to New York recently and that their schedules were uncertain. He offered a way for Daly to know if they were coming, and to sell their seats otherwise:
Hereafter, consider our seats vacant at noon Tuesdays, if we have not written or telegraphed to keep them open for us [MTP].

In Hartford Sam also wrote to Augustin Daly again on a Sunday, advising that Daly could “have our seats again,” due to the Cranes being there, and Theodore being too ill for them to leave [MTP].

Sam inscribed copies of CY to:
S.J. Kirk: S.J. Kirk / with compts of / The Author / ~ / 1889.
Annie E. Trumbull: To / My Dear Miss Annie Trumbull / with the best wishes of / The Author / ~ / 1889.
F.H. Watts: F.H. Watts / with compts of / The Author / ~ / 1889. [MTP].
Sam also inscribed an unknown book to J.R. Newton: J.R. Newton / with compts of / The Author / ~ / 1889. [MTP].
Sam also inscribed his personal copy of The Works of Robert Burns with a Whittier verse and Hartford, 1899 [MTP].
Rose Terry Cooke inscribed a copy of her book, Steadfast – The Story of a Saint and a Sinner (1889) to Sam: “S.L. Clemens with cordial gratitude from one of the Pittsfield ‘Old Women’ R.T.C.” [MTP].
Sam made notes on reviews of “Susy’s Play” [Univ. of Va. Guide to the Papers of MT online].
Joseph R. Hawley wrote sometime during 1889: “I’m very sorry the copyright bill is in a bad way for two reasons. / I really don’t think it is hopeless yet. If you have been told so by some experienced members of the House I’ll give it up but not otherwise.” After an invitation to dinner, Hawley wrote, “Don’t trouble yourself to reply. We’ll just inquire at the Arlington as we drive by,” which denotes Sam was in Washington, D.C. (Jan. 31-Feb. 2?) [MTP]. Note not mailed but sent.
Also during the year, Bradford Merrill, managing editor of the Philadelphia Press, sent Sam a form letter questionnaire polling “as fully or briefly as you please, what (1) circumstances, or (2) personal quality, or gift has chiefly contributed to your success in life.” Sam responded to each question:

[1.] I have published infrequently, & have burnt more manuscript than I have printed.
[2.] Good Humor [MTP].

Andrew Lang’s article, “Western Drolls,” a chapter in Lost Leaders (1889) contained a “conventional description of the man and his works; facing, there is a portrait of MT” [Tenney, ALR supplement to the MT Reference Guide (Autumn, 1979) 182].
Max O’Rell and Jack Allyn; translated by Madame Paul Blouët: Jonathan and His Continent: Rambles through American Society (1889), p. 113-15:
Mark Twain has amassed a considerable fortune, not — as he says himself — in writing his own books, but in publishing those of other people. If there had been an international copyright between England and America, Mark Twain would have made a considerable fortune without going into business….This man of merriment is, it appears, also a deep student of serious things [MTJ, “Bibliographic Issue 4” 42:1 (Spring 2004) 5-6].
Sam also wrote an unidentified tailor:
I have been forgetting and forgetting until I am in rags. Please make me a colored suit (near Kin but not precisely the same as the last one)… [MTP]. Note: this may have been to Frank M. Wilson & Co, “Tailors and Gent’s Furnishers” in Bridgeport, Conn., where Sam had purchased other suits.
Books published by Charles L. Webster & Co. in 1889.
Conkling, Alfred R., The Life and Letters of Roscoe Conkling, Orator, Statesman, Advocate
Filippini, Alexander, The Table: How to Buy Food, How to Cook It, and How to Serve It
Stedman, Edmund Clarence, A Library of American Literature from the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time Twain, Mark, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court