November 26 Monday – Eighteen year old William (“Will”) M. Clemens (1860-1931) wrote to Sam, the first of over a dozen he would write by 1909.
To “That Uncle of mine”
Dear Mark; / I have just finished the “Gilded age,” for the second time, and I am determined to write you, not, for the sake of the book but to form an acquaintance with yourself.
I am a young man of 18, or a boy in his teens, just as you like it.
November 23 Friday – Sam dated several story and book ideas in his notebook, including one “in which the telephone plays a principal part (the germ of the story “The Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence and Rosannah Ethelton” published in the Atlantic for Mar. 1878). He wrote notes for Prince and the Pauper, which he’d worked on in the summer of 1877.
November? 22 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles E. Flower, advising that since receiving his letter about the Shakespeare Memorial, he had corresponded with some New York newspaper men. Sam and Livy stayed with the Flower family on their first trip to London together and Sam had used his influence to help Flower raise funds in the U.S. [MTLE 2: 198].
November 21 Wednesday – E.S. Sykes, Hartford druggists wrote to Sam: “I return herewith your letter as requested. I read it to the Board as proposed. And it certainly set you right with those gentlemen who knew of yr. connection with the matter. / Feeling sure that if others were as ready to do their part as you have shown yourself to do yours that our poor would not want assistance, I remain… [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env “The performance that didn’t come off”
November 20 Tuesday – Dean Sage visited Twichell from Nov. 19 to 21. Twichell’s journal entry notes they went “to lunch at Mark Twain’s at noon” [Yale, copy at MTP].
November 18 Sunday – Edward Fordham Flower wrote from London: “I send you some notices of two pamphlets in one which are now published in New York by Cassells & Co. Can you do or say anything to make them known[?]” [MTP]. Note: father of Charles Edward Flower.
November 17 Saturday – Orion Clemens wrote of his change of offices, his being made Secretary of Republicans to publish the proceedings of the primary, thanking Livy for her account of Hall’s death, and of reading extracts of Sam’s Bermuda letters in the Atlantic Monthly [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “Preserve”
November 13 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Orion in Keokuk. Only the envelope survives [MTLE 2: 196]. Sam paid a bill from Osgood & Co. for a copy of Fridthjof’s Saga that he’d ordered on Mar. 20 and for Bayard Taylor’s The National Ode: The Memorial Freedom Poem (1877) purchased on Jan.
November 12 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Thomas Nast, proposing the same plan that he had turned down in Nov. 1867—that is, to lecture together, Sam talking while Nast drew pictures. Sam listed the 75 cities they would tour, and estimated a net profit from $60,000 to $75,000 to split.
November 9 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to E.S. Sykes (Hartford druggist) evidently about some carping on a recent event to raise money for charity, which Sam had volunteered for but wished only a lesser role in, and his name kept out of the newspapers. Relating the complaints about the shortcomings of the fundraiser to a sermon by Twichell, Sam quoted: