January 23 Wednesday – Frank E. Bliss sent a statement wth a balance due Sam of $844 [MTP].

January 24 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Frank Bliss, sending his compliments that he’d done “exceedingly well. Looks like a decided improvement in business…” [MTLE 3: 6]. Since Sam usually wrote to Frank for accounts of royalties, evidently Sam had received reports and checks that showed an improvement of book sales.

January 25 Friday – O.S. Chamberlain wrote from NYC to ask Sam to lecture [MTP].

January 26 Saturday – Sam gave a speech at the Geselischaft Harmonic in New York City. The text is not available [Schmidt]. Note: see Jan. 18 & 19 from Edward Lauterbach.

The New York Sun ran a comic piece correcting its Jan. 7 article. The new piece was titled, “Not Quite an Editor / The Story of Mark Twain’s Connection with the HARTFORD COURANT” [Budd, “Interviews” 1].

January 27 Sunday – Sam returned this day or the next from New York to Hartford [MTLE 3: 10].

Henry Watterson wrote from Davenport, Ia., having “just laid down ‘Tom Sawyer,’ and can not resist the pressure. It is immense!” He also asked for Twain’s autograph [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Watterson, editor Louisville Courier Journal / Autograph”.

January 28 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Orion, that he was “just back from New York tired to death” but cleared up the “joke” about being connected with the Hartford Courant [MTLE 3: 10].

Charles M. Pulham wrote as chairman of the entertainment committee for the NY Press Club. He hoped Sam would help them out again on Feb. 25th [MTP].

January 30 Wednesday – T.C. Marsh, cigar merchant, Cambridge, Ohio, wrote to ask if he might use Twain’s picture cut in his advertisements. He enclosed two small flyers on green paper done for the “Nasby” Cigar, showing his intent [MTP].

January 31 Thursday – C.A. Patterson wrote from Vernon Junction, Ohio to beg for a job as his wife was dying. He was currently working as a telegraph operator [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env.,“Curiosity”

About this day Clemens wrote to Daniel Slote, inclosing MS. for publication. The note, if any, is not extant, but the MS. is referred to by Slote’s Feb. 1 reply.

February – In Hartford Sam wrote to an unidentified “friend in Detroit denying the charge that he is lazy. Instead of being lazy, he says, he has no less than four books under way, with the title of each nicely written out in a plain hand and the first chapters headed off” [MTPO: “Recent Changes,” Jan. 20, 2009: Washington Post, Feb. 26, 1878].
Sam signed an identification card that was either some sort of template, or for some sort of whimsy [Live auctioneers, Sept. 28, 2004, lot 0162]. See insert.

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 2 Saturday – Dan Slote for Slote, Woodman & Co. wrote again to Sam.

Dear Sam, / Have procured numbers of Atlantic Monthly for new Sketches of Bermuda and only await two proof copies of March number to complete volume suggested—

      Send me at once Two copies of St Patrick’s Dinner speech, or one for printer. One extra copy of each—Rogers Paper & Literary Nightmare…

February 3 Sunday – Clemens replied to Dan’s Slote’s request for terms on publishing some of his sketches. Letter not extant but referred to in Slote’s Feb. 4 reply.

February 4 Monday – Dan Slote for Slote, Woodman & Co. wrote to Sam having rec’d his “kind favor.” (est Feb. 3 not extant) “We shall get at work on the Sketches at once on the terms agreed…” so asked for article copies [MTP].

February 4 and 5 Tuesday – Jane Clemens wrote to Sam and Livy

February 5 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Mary Mason Fairbanks after receiving her letter. Evidently the New York Sun’s article about Sam being “connected” with the Hartford Courant had reached as far as Cleveland, because Sam had to explain again that the “article was manufactured out of whole cloth.” The rumor stemmed from the telephone connection between the Courant and the Clemens home.

February 6 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford per an unknown secretary to Andrew Chatto, letting him know that a “…member of our scrap-book firm (Mr. Wilde) is about to establish himself permanently in London…to attend personally to the proper scrap booking of the eastern hemisphere” [MTLE 3: 14].

February 7 Thursday – Charles J. Langdon wrote to Sam on behalf of Towner, a writer he knew. “I am greatly obliged to you for your letter of Feby 5th / It contains valuable information & I shall at once proceed to offer poor Towner some advice…” [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 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”

February 16 Saturday – Sam’s short story, “The Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence and Rosannah Ethelton,” ran on the front page of the Hartford Courant [Courant.com]. It also ran in the March edition of Atlantic Monthly [Wells, 22].

February 17 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his mother, Jane Clemens. After admitting “My conscience blisters me for not writing you,” Sam wrote of the burdens causing him to seek solace out of the country:

February 20 Wednesday – Sayles, Dick & Fitzgerald’s Publishing House, NYC wrote to ask Sam’s permission to “insert a sketch called ‘Membranous Croup’ in our next issue of ‘Dick’s Recitations.” They listed those articles of Twain’s that had already been published in their periodical, mostly through the Atlantic Monthly [MTP].

February 21 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Orion in Keokuk, who had sent “random snatches” of a story he was writing. Sam judged the story to be “poaching upon [Jules] Verne’s peculiar preserve,” something Sam found distasteful and unwise. The story was about a descent into the middle of the earth.

February 23 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his mother, Jane Clemens about Orion’s “wandering, motiveless imitation of the rampaging French lunatic, Jules Verne.” Sam’s letter revealed some anxiety over Orion embarrassing the “family name,” meaning the name of Mark Twain, which he’d spent a lifetime building. It wasn’t decent to imitate an entire book, he wrote.

February 24 Sunday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam.

“I must see you somehow, before you go. I’m in dreadfully low spirits about it….I was afraid your silence meant something wicked” [MTHL 1: 218].

February 25 Monday – Sam gave a speech at the New York Press Club. The text is not available [Schmidt].

Dan Slote for Slote, Woodman & Co. wrote to Sam. He’d been down with a cold but was better and had called at the Hamburg line office to secure passage on the Holsatia—the costs made him “unusually short” and wondered if Sam might help [MTP].