December 10 Tuesday – The official U.S. publication date for Connecticut Yankee. Some 25,000 copies were printed before the end of the year [Hirst, “A Note on the Text” Afterword materials p.28, Oxford ed. 1996].
The New York Times, p.5 ran an interview, “MARK TWAIN AND HIS BOOK.” A somewhat different version of this ran on Dec. 23, 1889 in London’s Pall Mall Gazette, p.1-2 (see Scharnhorst, Interviews.101-150). After a brief description of the Clemens’ Hartford home, the newspaper reported,
Mr. Clemens, as is his custom, spoke very quietly and slowly. His new book will be published in New-York on the 10th, but before then he will pay a flying visit to Canada. He will just look over the frontier and register on the other side. He could register nearer home with less trouble, but his peep into Canada will secure him copyright there and in England. Mr. Clemens had something to say about this new book, and about how he had been obliged to modify it to suit the English publisher.
“Had the same party been in power,” said Mr. Clemens, “I would have gone to Washington again with the boys. But I don’t know the feeling of the present Congress, and I have not much faith in a Republican Congress anyway. They are more likely to clap on more protection where it isn’t needed than to pass a measure which would do some good. Every one ought to get value for his labor, whether he makes boots or manuscripts.
Mr. Clemens is delighted at the way the artist has entered into the spirit of the book in executing the illustrations, and pointed specially to a fine portrait of Jay Gould in the capacity of “the slave driver,” but he fears that some of the illustrations in the English edition will be sacrificed on the altar of English hypocrisy.
On or shortly after this day Sam answered Henry W. Cleveland’s letter of this date with a one-line directive:
Please address the firm. I am not the firm [MTP].
Sam also inscribed the flyleaf of a copy of CY to Edmund C. Stedman:
My Dear Stedman — It was ever so kind of you to drive your critical plow through the MS for me, & I hold myself your obliged friend & servant [MTP].
Clemens also inscribed a CY for Charles M. Underhill, longtime salesman for J. Langdon & Co.:
To/ C.M. Underhill — / Don’t forget that there is a good sound British copyright on you, & that I own it. I send you my love with this / Mark Twain / ~ / Dec. 10/89 [MTP] See Aug. 6, 1872 entry.
William Bowen wrote to Sam:
Your favor 3d returning the New Zealand letter rec’d 7th, since which date have scarce had time to ack’e sooner. / All right — I’ll send “Meares” your letter — thus you make the whole South Sea happy. / Poor Meares — an ardent admirer — one of those who only laugh inside — but seem to laugh all over — he’ll cry. / Do you know I’d give a Dollar to hear you Lecture once? I recall the announcement of your death. Maybe you will die some day — like Jeff Davis. /Few braver — better — purer — greater ever lived or died than he [MTP].
Henry W. Cleveland wrote on Louisville Mayor letterhead to Sam about the autobiography of Jefferson Davis. Sam had answered Cleveland a year before that he was a year too soon, so now was Sam interested? Sam wrote on the envelope, “Please address the firm. I am not the firm,” meaning Webster & Co [MTP].