October 12 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to William Tecumseh Sherman, who had agreed with Sam not to publish his travel notes. Sam thought he had “decided wisely,” and would return the General’s manuscript. He would see if it violated copyright to send Sherman an early copy of Grant’s Memoirs. Sam also suggested several memoirs the General might benefit from reading [MTP].
October 13 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster, repeating his intention to retail commissions as general agents for the New York City district. Sam instructed this to be fifteen per cent and not to “make any other calculation.” Sam and Livy were “glad you & Annie are back again & well.” Sam was “very uncertain” when he would be down next [MTP].
October 14 Wednesday – Moncure Conway and daughter Mildred visited the Clemenses. Moncure’s oldest son was practicing law in New York City [MTNJ 3: 201n57].
October 15 Thursday – Jacob L. Greene for Grover Cleveland wrote thanking Sam for a letter. “I am glad you have voiced to him [President] the satisfaction of the Hartford Mugwumps with him” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “From the President of the U.S.”
October 16 Friday – In Boston, Howells wrote to Sam of his new agreement with Harper & Bros. Conditions of his employment forbade his name from appearing save over their imprint, so it affected his part in the Library of Humor book. Howells suggested he sell out at a “sacrifice” to Sam, settling for $2,500, or half of the original agreement. He suggested Sam call the work “Mark Twain’s Library of American Humor” [MTHL 2: 537]. (See Oct. 18 entry.)
October 17 Saturday – The New York Times reported under “Personal Intelligence” p.2, that Sam was in New York staying at the Hotel Normandie. If true, Sam may have accompanied the Conways to the city after their Hartford visit, since Moncure’s son was practicing law in New York. Sam was back in Hartford on Oct. 18.
October 18 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford, answering Howells’ letter of Oct. 16. Howells had rejected Ticknor’s offer to become his publisher, and through Charles Fairchild’s efforts came to an agreement with Harper’s which would pay him a $10,000 per year salary for the serial rights to a yearly 300-page novel, plus other income for articles and a column.
October 19 Monday – A.P. Fulkerson wrote from KC asking if Sam had referred to him in an 1870 sketch, “Yaller Dog” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Yaller dog”; In HF Sam wrote “It don’t make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person’s conscience ain’t got no sense, and just goes for him anyway. If I had a yaller dog that didn’t know no more than a person’s conscience does I would pison him. It takes up more room than all the rest of a person’s insides, and yet ain’t no good, nohow.”
October 20 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster, advising him to get a new set of plates for the printers. If Sam remembered rightly, 150,000 impressions was the life of the plates. After that, the impressions would not print clearly. [MTP].
October 21 Wednesday – Sam borrowed $100,000 from Samuel G. Dunham, director and treasurer of the Dunham Hosiery Co. of Hartford, a friend of the Clemens family. (Note: this is not Samuel C. Dunham, Hartford atty.) The loan was to cover publishing costs for Grant’s Memoirs, with $15,000 payable Jan. 29, 1886 and $85,000 payable Feb. 27, 1886 at six per cent interest.
October 22 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster with the financial matters of the loan from Dunham, whom he did not name. Sam repeated that since he’d made himself personally liable for the notes, Webster needed to fully insure the books, both finished and unfinished.
“I mean, get all the insurance you can on them” [MTP].
October 23 Friday – Joe Twichell wrote a short note, clipping enclosed “Aerial Navigation”: “Don’t you remember how one of us said, when we last walked to the Tower, speaking of aerial navigation, that the problem was bound to be solved sometime, because it was never given up, but there were always men at work on it. / The sight of the enclosed recalled the remark” [MTP]. Note: Steering a balloon had always been a challenge.
October 24 Saturday – Charles Webster wrote from New York to Sam in Hartford:
October 26 Monday – Sam had returned to New York, this time with Livy [see Oct. 28 to Annie Webster]. He made a notebook entry that “Up to date, 320,000 sets of General Grant’s book have been subscribed for—that is to say, 640,000 single volumes” [MTNJ 3: 204]. He also noted seeing a play at the Metropolitan in New York.:
October 27 Tuesday – Livy shopped while Sam tried to finish business but failed to visit his niece, Annie. After stopping at Mrs. Grant’s, he could not see Charles Webster in time to catch his train. Livy was worn out (Sam wrote “she had the cholera morbus lately”). The trip went all wrong, Sam wrote, and he apologized for not calling [MTP].
October 28 Wednesday – Samuel G. Dunham remitted the proceeds from Clemens’ $100,000 notes to Charles Webster, for the working capital to publish Grant’s Memoirs [MTNJ 3: 204n69].
Sam wrote from Hartford to his niece, Annie Webster, apologizing for not being able to stop for a visit with Livy the day before [MTP].
October 29 Thursday – Charles Webster notified Sam that the proceeds of the notes had been received all right from Dunham. “I have offered Col Grant ½ profits on his book up to 50,000 and if it sold more than 50,000 to give him 60% of the profits. We can afford this and no more” [MTNJ 3: 204n69; MTP].
October 30 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his mother, Jane Clemens.
November – Sam, in Hartford, inscribed a copy of P&P to Ulysses S. Grant Jr (“Buck”): “To / U.S. Grant, Jr. / from / The Author. / ~ / Nov. ’85” [MTP].
November 1 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to unidentified persons:
“Dear Sirs: I think you have been ordering & paying for our several magazines, & charging to us in your usual bills. If so, please continue to do it & oblige” [MTP].
November 2 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster about a mix up with too many books sent to station masters on the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad—men who were involved in arranging “hotel” or “parlor” cars for the Clemens family when they traveled back and forth between Elmira and Hoboken. Griffith, A.
November 3 Tuesday – George Walton Greene wrote to encourage Sam to attend the annual meeting of the Copyright League on Saturday [MTP].
The “Troy ass” R.L. Blakeman also wrote…from Troy NY. Only the envelope survives [MTP].
November 4 Wednesday – Sam wrote a letter from New York City to Annie Eliot Trumbull, daughter of Hartford historian and philologist J. Hammond Trumbull, who wrote the multilingual chapter epigraphs for The Gilded Age. The Trumbulls were family friends. The letter was entirely in German [MTP].
November 5 Thursday – Orion Clemens wrote check rec’d for $155. “Jean’s letter was very interesting. Tell her to write again”[MTP].
Rollin M. Daggett wrote from Washington DC about having Sam publish a book of “fifteen or twenty legends of love, chivalry and barbaric pomp, extending back for over seven hundred years,” he was preparing with King Kalakana of Hawaii [MTP].
November 6 Friday – Frank Fuller wrote from Madison, NY. About being lied to by a solicitor that Clemens would “take charge of this magazine,” Literary Life. He then wrote of a financial scheme [MTP].