January 12 Sunday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to William Dean Howells after receiving some poetry from Hydesaburo Ohashi, which he evidently enclosed here.

Say—Howells, don’t you want to discover a Japanese poet & introduce him to the public? It seems to me that his lines about the moon are poetry; also that the satire in the closing lines of the first paragraph exhibits a smart & calculated reserve not found every day in a beginner. …

January 11 Saturday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote a postcard to Ernest Howard Crosby of the New York Anti-Imperialist League, N.Y.C. “Make it 11 a.m. any day, but give me 24 hours’ notice by post, so that I may make no interfering arrangement” [MTP].

January 10 Friday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Frank Bliss, explaining his grievance against the Boston publisher Small & Maynard, and the letters he’d sent Jan. 9 to the 25 writers to determine which twelve had agreed to be contributors:

The publishers, without my consent, used my name to help advertise a book to which I had neither contributed nor been asked to contribute.

January 9 Thursday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam sent 16 form letters to writers (25 were named in the publisher’s list) to determine if they had been asked and did contribute a story to a proposed book (A House Party) by Small & Maynard, a Boston publisher. He was concerned that his name had been advertised as one of the writers without his permission. The recipients all answered in the affirmative: they had been invited to contribute. Thirteen responses survive;. These writers were: John K.

January 8 Wednesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to William Dean Howells that he’d lost the letter from Thomas Bailey Aldrich; he still had it the day before but now he couldn’t find it anywhere. He would keep looking [MTHL 2: 738]. Note: see Jan. 3.

January 7 Tuesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Brander Matthews: “There’s not a blamed thing in the way, except I’m mortgaged for a lunch already, on that day” [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Francis H. Skrine in London:

“Although the Sir William biography, through the (possibly criminal) neglect of your publishers continues to not arrive, that doesn’t prevent these Clemenses from shouting Happy New Year in this most cordial voice across the Atlantic to those well-beloved Skrines.”

January 6 Monday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Virginia F. Boyle, “Poet Laureate of the Confederacy” that he was unable to thank her in verse but “in the heartiest of prose” did so [MTP]. Note: see Feb. 14, 1901.

January 5 Sunday – Sam’s notebook:

Diving for mussels—found a great pearl in one, got it yet—quarrel. Huck: “they eat ‘em guts & all!” Work it in. & in “50 Years Later.” That cheat of a wood-cutter who cut the cat’s tail off.

Chipping old mortar from bricks at so much a brick [NB 45 TS 2]. Note: story ideas for putting Huck & Tom back in Hannibal 50 years later—a story never finished. Hill claims the MS “is one of the very few that, in his entire life, Mark Twain actually may have destroyed” [43].

January 4 Saturday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam replied to Joe Twichell, that, having declined five public functions pleading he did not go outside of the city, he could not very well accept Twichell’s to come to Hartford “upon any invitation to a function there.” Therefore, he would not let Twichell know if he was coming and if it got into the newspapers that he was, he would stay home.

January 3 Friday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka, asking for a Christmas Harper’s, which he’d lost. He disclosed he’d written two articles for the Weekly but had put both in the fire, then wished Duneka a Happy New Year [MTP].

Sam also wrote to W.R. Dunn Photographers in England, thanking them for another set of photographs taken at Dollis Hill [MTP: Sotheby’s, London catalog: Dec. 17, 1998, Item 128i; MTP].