October 11 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, covering a lot of ground. First, Sam didn’t think he’d be able to do anything for the January Atlantic issue. He’d spent the whole day “clearing off a fortnight’s accumulating correspondence,” and would take it out on Howells. Sam wrote about the collaboration with Bret Harte in writing a play.

October 12 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells about his “blind novelette” idea. His scheme was to write a plot of his own design and hand it out to other noted writers, each writing his own version of the story. Howells would publish all of the versions in the Atlantic. The other writers resisted the idea, and Sam concluded that they were intimidated to follow his lead.

October 14 Saturday – Twichell’s journal:

“Walked to Farmington and back with M.T. and C.D.W. [Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner] —a most delightful day. The delicious grapes at Mrs Whitmore’s, lunched at Mr. Gray’s and called on Miss Mary Perkins at Miss Porter’s school” [Yale, copy at MTP].

This entry of Twichell’s fits the day Sam went to hear Georgia Cayvan speak, though Twichell does not mention her. In his Nov. 20, 1906 A.D. Sam recalled Miss Cayvan after reading of her death:

October 16 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote a short note to his attorney, Charles E. Perkins about the preparation of a list of taxable items for the Hartford tax assessors [MTLE 1: 129].

October 17 Tuesday ca. – Xantippe (“Tip”) Saunders wrote to Sam (not extant) but referred to by Sam in his Oct. 19 reply [Oct. 19 to Saunders].

October 18 Wednesday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam about “putting the Atlantic people up to a little enterprise,” –the publication of “one-number stories from the Atlantic” [MTHL 1: 161].

October 19 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his cousin Mary Ann Pamelia Xantippe “Tip” Saunders (1838-1922), who was born in Kentucky and studied art in New York. She was the first listing for “artist” in the 1874 Louisville phone book, and later ran an art school there. Tip had written asking to visit. Tip was the daughter of Ann Hancock Saunders, half-sister of John Marshall Clemens.

October 20 Friday – Sam sent his attorney, Charles E. Perkins, a postcard advising him of the receipt of “the Philadelphia checks for $1000 & $514” [MTLE 1: 132].

October 22 Sunday – The NY Sun, p. 4, ran what Budd calls “A comic, spurious interview” with Sam titled, “Mark Twain / An Extract from a Private Letter to a Gentleman of This City” [Interviews 1].

October 23 Monday – Sam had received the printed page back from Howells, naming the Ah Sin drama, himself and Bret Harte and the year—for copyright. He wrote to A. Spofford, Librarian of Congress for copyright application. The letter was stamped COPYRIGHT OCT 25 1876 [MTLE 1: 133].

October 25 Wednesday – Sam answered a letter from an unidentified woman (perhaps Miss Wood) who had been in Memphis to help the injured and dying from the Pennsylvania boiler explosion that killed Sam’s brother Henry. Sam could not recall the person and answered that he didn’t like to think about that week in Memphis for the horror of it.

October 26 Thursday – Sam wrote to William Cullen Bryant. This is another letter soliciting feedback on one George Vaughan, a Virginia writer who authored Progressive Religious and Social Poems (see Oct. 25, 1875 to the editor of the Hartford Courant). Vaughan professed to be engaged in establishing a normal school for colored people in Virginia and that many prominent people, Bryant among them, had contributed to his fund.

October 27 Friday – Sam dictated a letter from Hartford to John T. Raymond, who was in Toronto, Canada and who evidently had made objections to terms in their agreement to continue in his role of Col. Sellers in the play Gilded Age, which was eventually called Colonel Sellers. Sam wrote that he had supposed they might meet but he was going to Europe “for a year or two” with his family in April.

October 28 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Ellen D. Conway, Moncure’s wife, apologizing for thinking he had answered her letter of two months before, but discovering that he had not. Ellen’s letter concerned the electrotypes, cost and disposition of which Sam had offered to absorb.

November 1 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Jacob H. Burrough, Sam’s St. Louis roommate at the Pavey’s in 1854, who had written about Will Bowen being remarried. Burrough had recently traveled through New York, and his letter to Sam recalled a young Sam Clemens. Sam responded:

November 2 Thursday – Sam wrote a correspondence card of alarm from Hartford to Moncure Conway:

November 4 Saturday – Moncure Conway wrote from London to Sam.

November 5 Sunday – Bret Harte attended services at Twichell’s Asylum Hill Congregational Church. From Twichell’s journal:

“After evening service went over with H. to M.T.’s and had a very pleasant hour with Bret Harte” [Yale 114].

November 6 Monday – Joe Twichell and Charles Warner were walking to the Tower and stopped at Sam’s to see if he’d like to go. From Twichell’s journal:

November 7 Tuesday – The day Clemens recalled Bret Harte “suddenly” appearing at his house “and remaining there during the following day” [AMT 2: 424]. However, Twichell’s journal shows Sam did not correctly recall the date, since Twichell and Harte visited the Clemenses on Sunday, Nov. 5 (see entry). Clemens also recalled the claim of Harte, that he did not wish to vote on election day as he’d obtain the promise of a consulship from both candidates, Samuel J.

November 8 Wednesday – Election day – Sam telegraphed Howells that he’d “love to steal a while away from every cumbering care and while returns come in today lift up my voice & swear” [MTLE 1: 142]. Note: Sam parodied the first verse of a popular hymn by Phoebe Hinsdale Brown (1783-1861), one included in Henry Ward Beecher’s Plymouth Collection of Hymns: “I love to steal, awhile, away / From every cumbering c

November 9 Thursday – Rutherford B. Hayes won the election and Sam sent Howells a telegram of that old hymn: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow praise him all creatures here below…” etc. [MTLE 1: 143].

November 13 Monday – Sam read “The McWilliamses and the Membranous Croup,” “My Late Senatorial Secretaryship,” and “Encounter With an Interviewer” at the Academy of Music in Brooklyn, New York. Also on the program were Emma Thursby, a well-known operatic soprano, and a group of singers called the Young Apollo Glee Club [Brooklyn Eagle, Nov. 9 & 11, 1876 p1].

November 14 Tuesday – Sam gave a reading at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, for the Star Course of Lectures under Thomas B. Pugh. This reading was similar to his Nov. 13 performance in Brooklyn [MTPO: See advertisements in Philadelphia Public Ledger, Nov. 13 & 14, p1].

November 15 Wednesday – Andrew Chatto wrote from England, likely enclosed in Conway’s of the following day. “The telegram to Belford Bros. that Tom Sawyer is English copyright must strengthen Mark Twain’s hands….But I imagine the serious injury to Twain is their flooding the American market with copies—against this no one can stand so well as Mark Twain himself” [MTP].