September 2 Thursday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Elisha Bliss about securing agents in the Buffalo area for sales of Innocents Abroad. All sales were by subscription, with traveling agents advertising and soliciting the book [MTL 3: 327]. Sam sent a note of acknowledgement to Stephen C.
September 1 Wednesday – Sam’s article “The Prodigal Son Returns” appeared in the Express [McCullough 28]. Sam wrote from Buffalo to Alphonso Miner Griswold (1834-1891), who wrote under the pen name, “Fat Contributor,” of his desire to get out of all lectures for this season. Griswold was reviewed as a “colorless copy of Mark Twain” [MTL 3: 324]. Sam also wrote to Livy.
August 28 Saturday – Sam’s article “English Festivities. And Minor Matters. Fishing” appeared in the Express [McCullough 23].
August 27 Friday – Whitelaw Reid of the New York Tribune published the first review of Innocents by a metropolitan daily, a positive and even-handed appraisal [MTL 3: 343n1; Powers, MT A Life 275]. Any good word from the Tribune was momentous and important to Sam.
August 26 Thursday – Sam finished a letter of Aug. 25 from Buffalo to Livy of his plans to be home in Elmira about 8 PM Friday. He enclosed notices of the Innocents Abroad [MTL 3: 322-3].
“Only a Nigger,” attributed to Sam, ran in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 22].
August 25 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Charles Warren Stoddard, poet and contributor to the San Francisco Overland Monthly. Stoddard became Sam’s personal secretary/companion in London in 1872.
Dear Charlie: / Thank you heartily for all your good wishes—& you must accept of mine in return. I have written Bret that we must have the “Overland”—see that he sends it, will you?
August 24 Tuesday – “The Byron Scandal,” attributed to Sam, ran in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 19].
From the Buffalo Express “People and Things Columns” by Mark Twain:
· The Blondes will expose themselves in Elmira to-night.
· Peach kernels contain hydrocyanic (or prussic) acid, and are dangerous nutriment. Fifteen hundred of them taken on an empty stomach will kill a man.
August 23 Monday – “Uncriminal Victims,” attributed to Sam, ran in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 18].
From the Buffalo Express “People and Things Columns” by Mark Twain:
· Children in Iowa bite rattlesnakes in order to prevent toothache. Probably the cure would be more permanent if the rattlesnakes bit the children.
August 21 Saturday – Sam’s first signed sketch, “A Day at Niagara,” appeared in the Buffalo Express. Also an introductory piece he titled, “Salutatory”:
I shall always confine myself to the truth, except when it is attended with inconvenience.
I shall not write any poetry, unless I conceive a spite against the subscribers.
I shall not often meddle with politics, because we have a political editor who is already excellent, and only needs to serve a term in the penitentiary to be perfect [McCullough 5].
August 20 Friday – Sam, in Buffalo, began a letter at nearly 2 AM to his sister Pamela. He’d sent his luggage to St. Louis on June 24, but never made the trip, so apologized. With his wedding planned for Christmastime or New Year’s, Sam felt for his mother, and sister to travel across the country would be “equivalent to murder & arson & everything else,” not to mention a cost of some $500.