October 17 Thursday – In Cambridge, Mass., William Dean Howells wrote reporting on the proofs of CY, and telling Sam what he probably already knew:

This last batch, about the King’s and the Boss’s adventures, is all good; and it’s every kind of a delightful book. Passages in it do my whole soul good. — I suppose the Church will get after you; and I think it’s a pity that you don’t let us see how whenever Christ himself could get a chance, all possible good was done [MTHL 2: 614].

October 16 Wednesday –Hartford. Sam, laid up in bed, wrote again to Frank Fuller. After a paragraph about his old tendency to speculate and his eventual lack of interest in it, Sam talked about his health.

October 15 Tuesday – The New York World ran a piece about the Earl of Galloway rape case in England, in which the earl was acquitted on Oct. 14. Sam made an entry about it in his notebook. The article implied that the earl was found not guilty because of his power and wealth [MTNJ 3: 523n135].

Joseph T. Goodman wrote from Fresno:

October 14 Monday – In Hartford, on or just after A.F. Kelly’s letter of Oct. 12 with check arrived, Sam forwarded them to Franklin G. Whitmore and asked him to acknowledge receipt [MTP]. Note: allowing for mailing time between Elmira and Hartford, this would be the soonest Sam might have forwarded the letter and check to Whitmore.

The New York Times ran a short paragraph on p.8 of Sam’s invitation to a benefit:

THE HORACE GREELEY STATUE.

October 13 Sunday – The New York World announced a “contest of ideas” with a first prize of $1,000. The winners of the best ideas presented were to be announced on Christmas morning. Sam’s notebook carries this entry, which he wrote he proposed, though no record of any response has been found:

Oct. 13, ’89. Proposed my idea (of buying the remains of Columbus & bringing them over to the Fair of ’92,) to the N.Y. World “Committee on Ideas” — but shan’t name the idea till I hear from them [MTNJ 3: 523n134].

October 12 Saturday – In Hartford, Sam answered Frank Fuller’s letters of Oct. 9 and 11. In the past, Fuller had often hit Sam up for various investments, most of which turned sour. Fuller was at it again, but Sam offered to take Fuller’s money this time.

October 11 Friday – Frank Dalzell Finlay and his daughter Miss Mary Finlay had traveled from Belfast, Ireland to America and spent some days with the Clemens family in Hartford. In 1937 Mary Finlay wrote about the visit and this specific day:

…a lovely house. His 3 daughters — the eldest then 16, were there. They gave a big dinner in Father’s honor & I was covered with confusion, being very shy and self-conscious, when Mark Twain took me in first to dinner.

October 10 Thursday – L.J. Drake wrote to Sam having seen an advertisement for a perpetual calendar. In 1884 and 1885 Sam had urged Charles Webster to develop and patent a portable perpetual calendar but Webster didn’t think much of the idea and so it died [MTNJ 3: 522n131].

October 9 Wednesday – In Hartford, Sam wrote his sister, Pamela Moffett, who had sent a postcard from New York he received this morning.

October 8 Tuesday – Pamela Moffett left the Clemens home after a week visit [Oct. 7 to Langdon]. She sent a postcard from New York that she had arrived there [mentioned in Oct. 9 to Moffett].

Richard R. Bowker for Am. Copyright League sent Sam an invitation to read at the authors’ benefit for copyright at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Dec. 16 [MTNJ 3: 523n133].