November 28 Thursday – Thanksgiving – Sam gave a reading for the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) in their reading room, Hartford. A summary and some text of the speech was printed in the Hartford Courant, November 29, 1889, p.1 “Thanksgiving Exercises”:
November 27 Wednesday – Livy’s 44th birthday.
Sam’s notebook: Nov. 27. S.E. Moffett, one [Paige royalty sent] [3: 569].
Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam enclosing the weekly reports (not extant); the orders “continue to come in very well considering the horrible weather we are having.” Old books were selling well [MTP].
November 26 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Sylvester Baxter of the Boston Herald about sending illustrations for CY and sending sheets of the book to a Mr. Zuboff at Baxter’s request [MTP]. Note: The Herald’s review was not one of the first in Budd’s Contemporary Reviews.
November 25 Monday – Hunting & Howard wrote a short note to Sam:
Your favor received. We have the diamond stud referred to and will keep it in the safe subject to further orders from you. Very Truly Yours / Hunting & Howard [MTP]. Note: In the MTP file, a slip reads: “The ‘Howard’ of Hunting & Howard is Edward Tasker Howard, Clemens’s Sandwich Islands companion. See Roughing It notes by him or ET&S 3 notes by Bucci”
November 24 Sunday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Sylvester Baxter, having decided it unwise to release excerpts of CY in the US prior to publishing elsewhere:
It is a pity to have to relinquish my scheme, but it would imperil my English & Canadian copyright — & our copyright relations are much more strained now than they have ever been before. It was a mistake to publish portions of several chapters in the Century the other day, but I am discovering that fact late in the day.
November 23 Saturday – Sam once allowed his name to be advertised with the Loisette memory system, but his short note to Franklin G. Whitmore, likely in response to an inquiry, said Sam had “changed his mind long ago” [MTP].
Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam confirming that copyright laws required that Clemens “be on Canadian soil the day the book is published in England, viz: December 6th” [MTNJ 3: 535n162]. See Dec. 6.
November 22 Friday – In Hartford, Sam again wrote Sylvester Baxter of the Boston Herald, who he wanted to come out with an early review of CY. He wrote he was telegraphing his publisher to verify they’d sent Baxter an unbound copy. He also confided he’d asked Howells to write and tell Baxter he had no objections to a notice coming out before his, in Harper’s. His last revelation is interesting — knowing that aspects of the book might be objectionable, he wrote:
November 21 Thursday – Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam:
The only thing you have to do on the day of publication is, to cross the Canadian line, at any point, and register in some hotel in Canada and remain there during the hours of publication in England. ….P.S. If there are no hotels at which you can register at Niagara Falls in Canada, if you will post a letter or send a telegram from there that will be sufficient proof [MTP].
November 20 Wednesday – Webster & Co. sent Sam the first copies of Connecticut Yankee, albeit unbound set of stitched sheets [Hirst, “A Note on the Text” Afterword materials p.28, Oxford ed. 1996].
November 19 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Thomas Bailey Aldrich, thanking him for the “lovely book” and promising in December to send him “one that hasn’t much poetry in it, but pictures enough to make up” [MTP]. Gribben labels this as “an advance copy” of Wyndam Towers, since “Aldrich published no other volumes during this period” [18].