August 24 Saturday – In Elmira, Sam had just received the first batch of proofs sent by Webster & Co. on Aug. 18 [MTNJ 3: 512n109]. Sam wrote to William Dean Howells. Sam praised Beard’s illustrations for CY and hoped Howells could mention the book in his Harper’s column, “Editor’s Study.”

If you should be moved to speak of my book in The Study, I shall be glad & proud — & the sooner it gets in, the better for the book; though I don’t suppose you can get it in earlier than the November number — why, no, you can’t get it in till a month later than that. Well, anyway I don’t think I’ll send out any other press copy — except perhaps to Stedman. I’m not writing for those parties who miscal themselves critics, & I don’t care to have them paw the book at all. It’s my swan-song, my retirement from literature permanently, & I wish to pass to the cemetery unclodded [MTHL 2: 610-11].

Note. Howells review appeared in the Jan. 1890 issue of Harper’s Monthly. As to why Sam felt this was his “swan-song” it may be that Sam’s dreams of great wealth, which he hoped to realize with the Paige typesetter, allowed him to see an end to writing as a way to make a living. Another theory is that he realized he was “never again able to put on the vernacular mask with any creative result,” and saw his work as a failure [n2].

Sam also wrote to Robert Underwood Johnson sending proof of the CY excerpt and apologizing for a delay made by his “unavoidable” trip, probably to Hartford. Sam was concerned that the Century article with excerpts from CY was going to come out way before the book in December,

…to give many careless readers the impression that all of it will appear in the Century. Those are hard people for a canvasser to capture. / So you see I have offered a compromise. I use the book’s title as a heading, but ask you to put in that foot-note telling who publishes it [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Webster & Co., letter not extant but referred to in CLW Co.’s Aug. 27 [MTP].