December 12 Monday – The official date of publication for P&P. Two copies were placed with the Copyright Office, Library of Congress [Hirst, “A Note on the Text” Oxford edition, 1996].

Sam wrote from Hartford to Joel Chandler Harris in Atlanta.

I judge you haven’t received my new book yet—however, you will in a day or two. Meantime you must not take it ill if I drop Osgood a hint about your proposed story of slave life.....

When you come north I wish you would drop me a line and then follow it in person and give me a day or two at our house in Hartford. If you will, I will snatch Osgood down from Boston, and you won’t have to go there at all unless you want to. Please to bear this strictly in mind, and don’t forget it [MTLP 403]. 

Sam also wrote to Jeannette Leonard Gilder, who, with her brother, Joseph Benson Gilder (siblings of Richard Watson Gilder) founded The Critic, a New York literary magazine earlier in the year. Sam’s letter responded to complaints printed in The Critic of his sketch in November’s issue of Century magazine, “A Curious Experience.”  Sam wrote the piece earlier in the year and sold it to the magazine in May. Wilson explains:

“One irate reader complained…that the story struck him as ‘strangely familiar…Did Mr. Twain expect the public to credit this narrative to his clever brain?’…Mark Twain made no claim of originality for this story, for he begins with an acknowledgment that he is simply rehearsing, ‘as nearly as I can recall it’, a true story told him by a major in the U.S. Army” [31-2].

Nothing rankled Sam quite so much as being accused of literary theft. Sam’s letter to The Critic editor spared no edge in its criticism of the printed complaint or in a need to answer it:

Your correspondent is not stupid, I judge, but purely & simply malicious. He knew there was not the shadow of a suggestion, from the beginning to the end of “A Curious Experience,” that the story was an invention; he knew he had no warrant for trying to persuade the public that I had stolen the narrative…/ I have never wronged you in any way, & I think you had no right to print that communication; no right, neither any excuse. As to publicity answering that correspondent, I would as soon think of bandying words in public with any other prostitute [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Joel Chandler Harris. Sam would not always speak highly of Osgood’s publishing and business acumen, but in this letter he gave him high praise.

…you must not take it ill if I drop Osgood a hint about your proposed story of slave life; for the more I deal with him the more I am satisfied that whoever has a book will do the judicious thing to let him have it. He is a fine man every way; he knows his business; & it is less bother to publish a book with him than a pamphlet with another man. Moreover, we know, now, how to get a Canadian copyright—& I doubt if anybody else in America does know [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Sarah Pratt McLean Greene (1856-1935), of Simsbury, Conn., who wrote on Nov. 30 asking if he’d read her latest book, Cape Cod Folks (1881). The New England local-color writer’s first book was a romance set on Cape Cod, treating a schoolteacher’s life in a seafaring community. (See Gribben 275.)

I am just as much obliged to you, all the same, but I have already read it—months ago—& vastly enjoyed & admired it, too; as did also the rest of the family & the visitor within its gates. There was but one regret—that there wasn’t more of it. / I have commanded the Osgood to send you my new book [P&P]; & although I say it myself … you will travel a long way before you run across an abler binding [MTP].

Sam also wrote to James R. Osgood, asking him to send a “bound & unbound copy of the Prince to” Joel Chandler Harris. Sam enclosed Harris’ letter, disclosing his plans to write a story. Sam offered, “If you would like to have it for yourself & Chatto, drop him a line” [MTP]. Note: Osgood would print three of Harris’ books: Uncle Remus; His Songs and Sayings: The Folklore of the Old Plantation (1881); Nights with Uncle Remus (1883); and Mingo, and Other Sketches in Black and White (1884).

Sam also wrote to Charles Perkins asking that he put in a claim on the estate of John S. Ives of Hartford, as Sam “lent Ives $1000 last summer.” [Ives had been on Sam’s spelling match team May 12, 1875.] Sam enclosed a notice from the District of Hartford Probate Court [MTP]. Note: Sam was a fairly good judge of character and didn’t loan money to just anyone: Ives was the proprietor of a dry-goods store on Main Street, and a hero of the Civil War in the 25th Regiment of Connecticut Volunteers. This from an on-line history of the Regiment:

When the “objects of the expedition had been accomplished” (to use the words of General Banks’s order), the regiment returned to Baton Rouge, passing one wet and dreary night in “Camp Misery”—a night which will never be forgotten by any man who was there, nor will any member present forget the noble act of Quartermaster John S. Ives, who, almost dead himself, rode his almost dead horse into Baton Rouge and brought out to the men coffee and sugar, which they managed to prepare over small fires, and which, no doubt, saved many a man his life [http://www.one-barton-family.us/genealogy/ethel/b4620.html].

Robert Davidson Mac Gibbon wrote from Montreal to give Sam “a copy of the anecdote which you honored by your appreciation” [MTP].