January 9 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

The days fly busily along. There seems no chance of ever settling the house. Mr. Clemens is still in his bed—and the best things in the day are the games of 500 beside his bed. We play on a big square cigar box. Today a long gaunt reporter from “The World” came to have Mr. Clemens comment upon an account of himself. He tried to extract information from me, but I am solemnly non-committal [MTP: TS 36-37].

Houghton Mifflin & Co.wrote to Sam, to set straight certain facts regarding royalties to Harriet Beecher Stowe on Uncle Tom’s Cabin in her later years. They disputed Twain’s article in the Jan. issue of the NAR, which claimed the publishers rec’d profits on the book starting from 7 years before her death. They corrected that to 3 years and wrote that Stowe’s daughters had “elected to sell us the copyrights of all their mother’s writings outright” [MTP].