December 28 Saturday – Sam’s notebook entry suggests travel:

[Chk #] 4399. Dec. 28. Ticket office RR, for 2000 miles, $40 [3: 537].

John (“Jock”) Brown, son of the late Dr. John Brown, wrote to Sam from Edinburgh:

December 27 Friday – In Hartford, Sam & Livy thanked Olivia Lewis Langdon for books sent and for her usual generous Christmas check:

]Sam:] Mother Dear, accept my very best thanks for the noble volumes. The valuable part of our library is complete now.

December 25 Wednesday – Christmas – Sam inscribed a copy of CY to Susan Corey: Miss Susan Corey with the compliments of the Author, Xmas, 1889 / Yours Truly Mark Twain [MTP].

Sam also inscribed a half-morocco copy of CY to Maria C. Gay: Mrs. Julius Gay with the compliments of the author. Xmas, 1889 [MTP]

December 24 Tuesday – The Prince and the Pauper stage play opened at the Park Theater in Philadelphia, managed by Daniel Frohman and staged by David Belasco. Elsie Leslie, the child actor, starred in the dual roles. The engagement ran about four weeks. Fatout writes:

December 23 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to William Dean Howells.

The magazine [Harper’s] came last night, & the Study notice [“Editor’s Study” review of CY] is just great. The satisfaction it affords me could not be more prodigious if the book deserved every word of it: & maybe it does; I hope it does, though of course I can’t realize it & believe it. But I am your grateful servant, anyway & always.

December 22 Sunday – Charles D. Poston wrote from Wash. to wish Sam a merry Christmas and a happy new year, thereby “renewing the appearance of many years friendship” [MTP]. See Dec. 28, 1888.

December 21 Saturday – Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam that his telegram for “6 Morocco ‘Yankee’” was received and they’d been shipped. Enclosed was an audit by Barrow, Wade, Guthrie, & Co., Public Accountants for the period of four months ending Aug. 31, 1889. They found the books in good order. A N.Y. World reporter had been by the previous day asking what was behind a portrait of Jason “Jay” Gould (1836-1892) in CY. Mr.

December 20 Friday – In Hartford, Sam replied to L.E. Parkhurst (incoming not extant) who evidently inquired about the illustration “The Slave Driver” in CY, which was a likeness of robber baron Jay Gould.

December 19 Thursday – In Hartford, Sam wrote compliments to Sylvester Baxter on his “admirable notice” in the Boston Herald for CY. He anticipated the visit of Baxter and Edward Bellamy on Jan. 3.

And I am so glad you said the appreciative word for Beard’s excellent pictures.

December 18 Wednesday – In Boston, William Dean Howells wrote a short note to Sam, enclosing “another letter from my old Tennessee woman” (unidentified) that was “full of fervor and most ‘fortimate’ inventions in spelling.” Howells thought Sam and Livy might want to see the letter and asked for its return [MTHL 2: 624]. Note: Sam would comment on the old woman’s letter in his Dec. 23 to Howells.