October 12 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells about his “blind novelette” idea. His scheme was to write a plot of his own design and hand it out to other noted writers, each writing his own version of the story. Howells would publish all of the versions in the Atlantic. The other writers resisted the idea, and Sam concluded that they were intimidated to follow his lead. Sam suggested anonymously presenting a story to them, repeating the suggestion made by Charles Dudley Warner that the story came from an estate. Sam suggested others to start the ball rolling:

Won’t Mr. Holmes? Won’t Henry James? Won’t Mr. Lowell, & some more of the big literary fish? If we could ring in one or two towering names beside your own, we wouldn’t have to beg the lesser fry very hard. Holmes, Howells, Harte, James, Aldrich, Warner, Trobridge, Twain—now there’s a good & godly gang—team, I mean—everything’s a team, now.

If we fail to connect, here, I’ll start it anonymously in Temple Bar & see if I can’t get the English Authors to do it up handsomely. It would make a stunning book to sell on railway trains [MTLE 1: 128]. Note: James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes.