March 17 Tuesday – In Hartford, Sam inscribed a copy of Huckleberry Finn to Margaret Warner, daughter of George Warner: “To / Margaret Warner / with the love of / The Author / Hartford March 17, 1885” [MTP].

The banning of Huck Finn by the Concord Public Library brought this article from the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, which quoted library board members, one of whom said:

While I do not wish to state it as my opinion that the book is absolutely immoral in its tone…it contains but very little humor, and that little is of a very coarse type…I regard it as the veriest trash [Powers, MT A Life 490, 670n36].

Sam wrote or telegraphed Howells, “naming Tuesday” for a visit. The communication is not extant, but is referred to in Howells’ Mar. 18 letter—see entry that date [MTHL 2: 522].

James Whitcomb Riley wrote Sam again (see Feb. 25 entry). “It is a very great delight to read what you have written me of ‘The Old Swimming Hole’ and over and over I review your gentle tribute.” When would they meet? [MTP]; Gribben notes “Clemens began to think of speaking with Riley in England on a lecture tour” [580]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “The poet Riley with two poems”; two poems from news clippings in file: “like his mother used to Make” and “down on Wriggle Crick”

Charles Webster wrote he couldn’t recall what he’d written in a letter Jean destroyed; sales were up “making 40,000 in all and no apparent let up.” He’d found an old picture of Lt. Grant in uniform [MTP].