January 29 Sunday – Sam’s article, “The Danger of Lying in Bed,” which also appeared in the Feb. 1871 issue of the Galaxy, was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 281]. This was the last known article Sam published in the Buffalo Express.
January 28 Saturday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Willard McKinstry (1815-1899), publisher and editor of the Fredonia Censor since 1842, declining to attend a dinner at the Censor’s 50th anniversary.
January 27 Friday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Thomas Bailey Aldrich concerning the Bret Harte plagiarism claim and Sam’s subsequent denial that the Carl Byng verses were his.
“No, indeed, don’t take back the apology! Hang it, I don’t want to abuse a man’s civility merely because he gives me the chance.”
Sam also gave credit to Harte for changing him:
January 26 Thursday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Mary Mason Fairbanks.
“Remembering the hatchet, I am your own moral son, which cannot tell a lie, when a body is looking straight at him…make the bride & groom be sure to stop…” —that is, Alice and William Gaylord on their honeymoon [MTL 4: 314].
January 25 Wednesday – Livy and Sam (mostly Livy) wrote to Alice Hooker Day from a Buffalo hospital where Livy took Langdon for a wet nurse. Sam added an apology for an “absurdly curt dispatch” he had sent, probably canceling Isabella Beecher Hooker’s visit [MTL 4: 313-4]. Haughty Isabella was not one of Sam’s favorites.
January 24 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Elisha Bliss.
January 22 Sunday – Sam wrote from Buffalo, again to Thomas Bailey Aldrich, asking that he not print the paragraph sent on Jan. 15. Aldrich replied on Jan. 25 that it was too late; that the note and his apology had been printed on 42,000 copies of the next edition [MTL 4: 305].
January 21 Saturday – Isaac E. Sheldon wrote to Sam: “Why do you not return the proof sent to you some days since? I fear that it may not have reached you” [MTP].
C.F. Sterling wrote from Birmingham, Conn. to Sam.
January 19 Thursday – Isaac E. Sheldon wrote to Sam: “I send you by this mail 8 or 10 pages of print. / I think that you will like the page” [MTP]
January 18 Wednesday – Isaac E. Sheldon wrote to Sam: “Yours of the 15th just at hand / We will get out the book just as soon as possible. The stereotypers have delayed us.” He included more publishing details for A Burlesque Autobiography [MTP].