December 4 Tuesday – John Napton (1843-1917) and brothers wrote from Elkhill, Mo. to Sam.
“Mark Twain” / Dear Sir,
Is there the slightest probability of your writing and publishing any other books. “Innocents Abroad” “Roughing It” & “The Gilded Age” have about up-set our youngest brother Frank (the youngest of nine)—a youth of seventeen, now six feet two in his stocking-feet, and like yourself, a “Missouri puke,” “and to the manner born.”
December 5 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to an unidentified person, that “Cannibalism in the Cars” had never been published in America, and directed the person to Routledge editions [MTL 6: 305].
December 5 Sunday – Sam responded to a Dec. 2 tongue-in-cheek note from William A. Seaver asking for a copy of his new Sketches book, and including sentiments of a scorned lover. Sam responded by sending an inscribed copy of Sketches, New and Old: “To the aged & virtuous Wm. A.
December 5 Tuesday – Sam was back in Hartford. He dictated a letter through Fanny C.
December 5 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to D.F. Appleton, head of the New England Society (see Dec. 22 entry). The society had invited Sam to attend their 72nd anniversary at Delmonico’s in New York on Dec. 22. Sam begged “an offensive business engagement that day in Hartford,” and so declined to attend.
December 6 Monday – Robert Watt wrote to thank Sam for “the two splendid copies of your New and Old Sketches” [MTP].
December 6 Wednesday – Christian Bernard Tauchnitz wrote from Leipzig, Germany to Sam.
My dear Sir, / In consequence of your kind letter of Sept 14 I have added your “Tom Sawyer” to my series. It filled one of my little volumes. I have printed it from the London edition, in adding the dedication you wished.
December 7 and 9, 1875 Thursday
December 7 and 9 Thursday – Sam’s letter to the Hartford Courant, “The Infant Asylum Fair,” was reprinted in the New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Boston Evening Journal, and the Boston Morning Journal [Camfield, bibliog.].
December 8 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to William Dean Howells, about work on the “pilot articles.”
“I could wind up with No. 4, but there are some things more, which I am powerfully moved to write. Which is natural enough, since I am a person who would quit authorizing in a minute to go piloting, if the madam would stand it. I would rather sink a steamboat than eat, any time” [MTL 6: 305-6].
December 8 Friday – The release date for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer [Camfield, bibliog.]. Hirst gives this as the date “the earliest copies of the first edition came from the bindery” [“A Note on the Text” Oxford edition, 1996]. Only 23,638 copies were sold the first year, and less than 29,000 by the end of 1879, providing only half the income of The Gilded Age [Emerson 95].
December 9 Wednesday – In Hartford, using a typewriter he’d purchased in Boston with the help of Petroleum Nasby (David Locke), Sam typed from Hartford to Orion. The typewriter cost Sam $125 and could only print upper case letters.
December 9 Thursday – J. Ross Browne died in San Francisco, possibly of appendicitis. He was 54 [Browne 407].
John W. Hart wrote to Sam from State Prison awash in over-the-top prose. It all boils down to what Sam wrote on the envelope [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “From the burglar Hart describing the ship.” Hart had sent Sam a model ship made in prison.
December 9 Saturday – Moncure Conway wrote to Sam offering followup in the Belford piracy matter for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Belford was doubtful Sam’s copyright was valid in Canada, but Chatto would continue the fight. Legal remedies open to Sam and Chatto would only led to a Pyrrhic victory, since penalties for violation of the 1875 Canadian copyright act were small, and the damage done to U.S.
December 9 Sunday – Orion Clemens wrote from Keokuk to Sam, enclosing a short article “A Snide Book Agent,” which perpetrated a fraud selling a book “Elbow Room,” by Max Adeler as one by Twain. Orion is mentioned in the article and his letter describes his investigations into the matter [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Dec. 9/77 – Orion’s story about Sir John Franklin,” one of Orion’s literary efforts also enclosed.
February 1 Monday – In Hartford Sam replied to the Dec. 12, 1874 from Charles Warren Stoddard, a long letter from London about his travels and mutual friends. Stoddard wrote travel letters for the San Francisco Chronicle, and was in Rome the previous year.
February 1 Friday – Dan Slote for Slote, Woodman & Co. wrote to Sam. “Yours containing manuscripts &c received. / Woodman is away to day, but will be on hand to morrow, when I will confer with him relative to publishing— / Did you conclude the terms on which you desire we should publish as you say nothing about them in yours just at hand—” [MTP].
February 10 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Howells. Sam wrote that he’d sent the fifth article in the Atlantic series that day. He also urged Howells, who’d been meeting resistance from his wife, to “try hard, on the 15th, to say you will go to New Orleans.” Sam admitted not having much confidence in his insight as a literary critic, and Howells’ positive reviews of Stoddard’s articles for the Atlantic conflicted with Sam’s opinion.
February 10 Thursday – Marvin Henry Bovee wrote to Sam, flyer enclosed, once again (see Bovee’s Apr. 7, 1875) appealing for a visit and contribution by Clemens to the cause of ending capital punishment. Sam wrote on the letter, “From that inextinguishable dead beat who has infested legislatures for 20 years trying to put an end to capital punishment” [MTP].
February 10 Sunday – Sam wrote a burlesque “Certificate” from Hartford to Slote, Woodman and Co., stating that after using his “Self-Pasting Scrap Book,” all his rheumatism had disappeared [MTLE 3: 15].
February 12 Friday – In Hartford Sam replied to the Feb. 6 from to Hurd & Houghton Co. Sam didn’t see much money in the proposal of this publisher to bring forth a few good American novels “making them cheap, advertising them widely and securing thus popularity…” Houghton wished to make Sam the first author in the series [MTL 6: 379-80].
February 12 Monday – Sam wrote to George Bentley, head of London publishers Richard Bentley & Son, thanking him for “taking so much pains with Mr. Harte’s matter.” Sam promised to send magazine articles that he might write, ahead of U.S. Publication [MTLE 2: 15].
February 13 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Mary Mason Fairbanks, calling his letter only a “Postscript” to the one he’d sent Mollie Fairbanks.
February 13? Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Strother Nimrod Wiley (1815-1899), a famous pilot on the Mississippi during the 1850s. Wiley had read an excerpt from Sam’s Atlantic articles, reprinted in the St. Louis Times for Jan. 24, and recognized himself as “Mr. W——” in the second article. Wiley wrote to Sam who sent the letter on to Howells, and answered Wiley that he planned to be back in St.
February 14 and 16, 1877 Friday
February 14 and 16 Friday – Sam wrote a letter to the editor of the New York World concerning the lecture given in New York by Charles C. Duncan, who had captained the Quaker City. Sam derided Duncan by continually referring to him as the “head-waiter.” (It ran in the paper Feb. 18.)
February 14 Thursday, after – John P. Jones send his published speech, “Coinage of Silver Dollars” to Sam, no letter [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Speeches. ‘78”