June 21 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to an unidentified Mr. Gwynn, inviting him to “come up & play billiards the first evening you are in town” [MTL 6: 496].
In a letter from Lilly Gillette Warner (1838-1915) to her husband George H. Warner, she mentioned that Livy had recently suffered a miscarriage [MTL 6: 498n4].
Sam wrote to the editor of the Hartford Courant about a copyright infringement matter:
Sir: A respectable Boston publisher informs me that one Greer has offered to sell to him & to one or more Hartford publishing firms certain literary rubbish of mine which the said Greer fancies is unprotected. This paragraph is to inform all interested parties that all of my rubbish is amply protected. Neither Mr. Greer nor anyone else is authorized to trade in it / Respectfully / Mark Twain [MTP, drop-in letters].
Sam also wrote to an unknown “respectable Boston publisher” about Greer:
Gentlemen: / I thank you very much for exposing this man Greer’s projects to me. He is a common thief. He is the same chap who gets up the notorious black-mailing biographies of leather-headed nobodies. All of my stuff is amply protected, & none of it for sale—as Mr. Greer shall find to his serious cost the first time he closes a trade for any of it.
I am exposing this filthy thief in to-morrow’s Courant. If he will only carry out his word & call upon me he shall need assistance to get off the premises again.
Thankfully Yours
Saml. L. Clemens
[Susan Jaffe Tane Collection online, Cornell University]. Note: Frederick H. Greer (Sketches of Men of Progress 1870-1) of the “notorious blackmailing biographies” was also a passenger on the 1867 Quaker City excursion, though Sam either did not make the connection at this time or thought it unimportant. In his Jan. 7, 1870 letter to Mary Mason Fairbanks, Sam identified his character “Blucher” in IA as Greer (though some scholars have judged Blucher to be a composite character). Thanks to JoDee Benussi.
Clemens also wrote to William Dean Howells, who had visited Sam on June 12 and stayed until late June 13 or early June 14.
My Dear Howells: / O, the visit was just jolly! It couldn’t be improved on. And after the reputation we gained on Lexington Centennial Day it would have been a pity to become commonplace again by catching trains & being on time like the general scum of the earth. Since the walk to Boston Twichell & I invariably descend in the public estimation when discovered in a vehicle of any kind.
Thank you ever so much for the praises you give the story. I am going to take into serious consideration all you have said, & then make up my mind by & by. Since there is no plot to the thing, it is likely to follow its own drift, & so is as likely to drift into manhood as anywhere—I won’t interpose. If I only had the Mississippi book written, I would surely venture this story in the Atlantic. But I’ll see—I’ll think the whole thing over.
I don’t think Bliss wants that type-writer, because he don’t send for it. I’ll sell it to you for the twelve dollars I’ve got to pay him for his saddle—or I’ll gladly send it to you for nothing if you choose (for, plainly to be honest, I think $12 is too much for it.) Anyway, I’ll send it. Mrs. Clemens is sick abed & likely to remain so some days, poor thing. I’m just going to her, now.
Yrs Ever [MTP]. Note: during his visit, Howells read some of the nearly finished MS of TS and offered to serialize it in the Atlantic Monthly.