January 13 Monday – Sam had an unwelcome American visitor who, in effect, was a beggar. the visit, along with a Jan. 4 article from the Hartford Courant, led Sam to write a long letter to the Courant editor on the problem of beggars [MTNJ 2: 260]. (see Feb. 2 entry.)
January 12 Sunday – the Clemenses loved to entertain, something expected of many Nook Farm residents. according to Twichell’s journal, a dinner was given at Sam’s for Louis Fréchette, Poet Laureate of Canada:
“M.T. never was so funny as this time. The perfect art of a certain kind of story telling will die with him. No one beside can ever equal him, I am sure” [Andrews 92].
January 5 Sunday – Susan & Charles Dudley Warner wrote to Sam and Livy, expressing that they missed them and urging them to come home—all in a nearly illegible hand [MTP].
January 4 Saturday – Sam’s notebook:
Went to Grossen Kirschof & saw 15 or 20 dead [Southern Cemetery of Munich]
January – Sam wrote a long, newsy letter sometime during the month from Munich, Germany to an unidentified person. he was working on A Tramp Abroad and mentioned that a big octavo book, “requires a long pull and an almighty steady one.” Sam missed New England weather:
“I ache for a good honest all day, all night snowstorm, with a wind-up gale of 150 miles an hour and 35 degrees below zero. that is the only kind of weather that is fit and right for January” [MTLE 4: 1].
December 31 Tuesday – Clemens gave a reading which included “The Invalid’s Story,” to the American Artists Club, Munich Germany [MTPO].
December 28 Saturday Baron Tauchnitz wrote from Leipzig.
My dear Sir, / Some time ago I had the pleasure of publishing your work “Tom Sawyer” and I shall be glad to add to my Series another of your books. / Will you be kind enough therefore to send me at your earliest convenience a copy of one or two of your books which you think most popular, that I may print my edition from them [MTP].
December 26? Thursday – Sam wrote from Munich to Olivia Lewis Langdon, thanking her for “the magnificent ‘Faust’” [book] she sent for Christmas. “Livy gave me a noble great copy of ‘Reinicke Fuchs,’ nearly as big as the Faust, & containing the original Kaulbach illustrations.” Sam also thanked Susan Crane for her gift [MTLE 3: 113].
December 25 Wednesday – Christmas – Sam’s notebook:
Christmas in Germany.
December 23 Monday – Joe Twichell wrote to Sam; not found at MTP though catalogued as UCLC 32703.