November 24 Thursday – In Florence Sam wrote to Henry M. Alden of Harper & Brothers. He had sent what he thought was “the most delicious thing that has been offered to a magazine in 30 years,” and would “never get over the astonishment” of Alden’s rejection, simply because Sam did not write it.

Look here, Alden, you didn’t read it. You saw it was mainly reprint, & jumped to an over-hasty conclusion. But if you had read it — & read it aloud to people, as I have done — then you’d have seen effects such as you have never seen in your life up to now. Ah, if I had only been there! I’d have read it to you, & opened your eyes! [MTP].

Note: Sam offered the short piece by Samuel Watson Royston, The Enemy Conquered; or, Love Triumphant (1845), renamed with the pseudonym of G. Ragsdale McClintock. “ A Cure for the Blues” and “The Curious Book Complete” (as “The Enemy Conquered”) were later published as twinned texts in The £1,000,000 Bank-Note and Other Stories. “The Curious Book” was a direct reprinting of Royston’s old work with the McClintock pseudonym. See Apr. 22, 1884 entry, Vol. I; also Dec. 26 to Hall.

Sam also wrote to Frederick J. Hall, having received Hall’s Nov. 11. Sam related Alden’s rejection of the Royston piece and expressing belief that Gilder wasn’t “such a fool as that. Try him.” He also discussed his other two marketable works:

The price is not very important on a miscellaneous article, but if I publish “Those Extraordinary Twins” serially the price must be high. It is going to be a full-sized novel, and longer than the American Claimant. I have now written 43,000 words on it, and I think there will be as much more.

Yes, if St. Nick pays for Tom Sawyer [Abroad] when they accept it I’m willing that they defer publication till next Fall; because meantime I could write Part II of it, & then, whether they wanted Part II or not, we could add it to the book when we issue [MTLTP 326].