November 30 Saturday – Sam’s 54th Birthday.
Sylvester Baxter for Boston Herald wrote to Sam about the article on the CY they were to run, and sorry Sam could not join them for the Nationalist Club’s anniversary. “Could we not announce you in our list of contributors to The Nationalist Magazine?” He also asked if Sam “could write us a bit of something…” On the envelope Sam wrote, “ 1, No. 2, yes” [MTP].
December – Kaplan writes of the new contract between Sam Clemens and James W. Paige:
December 1 Sunday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Daniel Whitford, letter not extant but referred to in Whitford’s Dec. 2 to Sam [MTP].
December 2 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote a short note to decline Richard Bowker’s Nov. 30 invitation. Bowker was in the forefront of the lobby for international copyright legislation, and his name is familiar today to anyone involved in publishing:
Blessed are the dead that died in the cause. I’ve really got to stay away, this time, & let the other boys conduct the slaughter [MTP].
December 3 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Sylvester Baxter of the Boston Herald, who evidently had asked for a piece from Sam for publication:
December 4 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Joe Goodman encouraging him to “come east & lay regular siege to Jones.” Now Sam was using Jan. 20 as the date “when the machine will go to work again.” In order to strategize about Senator John P. Jones, Sam urged Joe to “come east immediately.” Sam also called the Mergenthaler “so feeble an enemy” based on its average production rate of 2,000 ems per hour.
December 5 Thursday – Two bound copies of Connecticut Yankee were deposited with the U.S. Copyright Office [Hirst, “A Note on the Text” Afterword materials p.28, Oxford ed. 1996].
Under the headline, “THEATRICAL GOSSIP.” the New York Times ran an article on page 8 about the dramatization of P&P.
December 6 Friday – The official publication date for Connecticut Yankee in London [Aug. 20 to Hall].
Sam’s notebook: 8.03 am — leaves Spr. 9.50 — get to Buf 8.35 pm [MTNJ 3: 534].
December 7 Saturday – Robert Donald wrote to Sam:
December 8 Sunday – The intended official publication date for Connecticut Yankee in Canada [Aug. 20 to Hall].
December 9 Monday – Sam’s notebook carries a “Mem. Of Agreement” dated this date in the body and Dec. 14 (date to be executed?) in the heading, for sales of 50 “Royalty Deeds of the Paige Compositor for fifty thousand dollars” to Elmira businessman Matthias Hollenback Arnot. Sam signed his wife’s name in the memo to be a witness [3: 536].
Note: right after this entry: West Point Jan 11 / Eggleston, Author’s Club, midnight, Dec. 31. (See Dec. 19 & 31 entries)
December 10 Tuesday – The official U.S. publication date for Connecticut Yankee. Some 25,000 copies were printed before the end of the year [Hirst, “A Note on the Text” Afterword materials p.28, Oxford ed. 1996].
December 11 Wednesday – The Hartford Times was first out of the chute with a review of CY on page 5.
December 12 Thursday – A day or two before, Livy wrote (letter not extant) to Col. John M. Wilson that Sam was too ill to keep his Dec. 14 engagement at West Point. Wilson answered on this day:
My dear Mr. Clemens:
Mrs. C’s letter is just received and I regret that you are ill.
December 13 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote an invitation in Livy’s behalf to Elinor M. Howells.
I write for Mrs. Clemens, who is still blind, after a nine months’ struggle with the oculists. To read a page or write one gives her a two-days’ headache. Please run down here with W.D.H., & be shut out from all save the family, & have some good talks & quiet good times, & the refreshment of rest in unfamiliar surroundings [MTHL 2: 623].
December 14 Saturday – Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam about books offered the firm and his ideas for each: Henry Clews’ Twenty Eight Years in Wall Street; an authorize biography of Jefferson Davis by Colonel Scharf; and History of the Supreme Court of the United States, author not named [MTP].
December 15 Sunday – In Boston, William Dean Howells wrote to Sam mentioning Baxter’s notice in the Boston Herald and graciously declining Sam’s invitation of Dec. 13 due to Elinor’s health.
December 16 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to George Dolby in London informing him that he’d written Henry M. Stanley in Zanzibar. Sam had read a newspaper report that Stanley might not remain in that country until spring, as previously reported. Sam asked Dolby to keep a copy of his letter and get it to Stanley should he reach London and fail to receive the original [MTP]. Note: Dolby had arranged Sam’s lecture schedule in London in Oct. 1873 (see Oct. 7, 1873 entry).
December 17 Tuesday – The N.Y. Times, p.2 “Authors’ Readings” included the entire text of Sam’s letter sent to the readings at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, explaining his reasons for not coming. Ex-Mayor Low read Sam’s letter, which complained that of “about twelve Authors’ readings,” not “a single one of them…was rationally conducted.” He decried the running over of allotted time by most readers.
Henry Whitney Cleveland wrote a follow up postcard to Sam:
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.
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 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 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 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 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.