January 8 Wednesday – From Hartford Sam wrote to his brother Orion Clemens of a Hartford epidemic of the grippe (flu or influenza). Even the doctors in town were laid up.
The cases in our house were Clara (now slowly convalescing,) four servants (all out of bed but one, now,) & one of Patrick’s [McAleer] children. Susie seems to be attacked since dinner, & the doctor has been notified [MTP].
January 7 Tuesday – A.E. Pattison for Pope Mfg. wrote to Sam asking where he might buy a “paper covered collection of short sketches” of Sam’s which included his “Bermuda paper,” by Slote, he thought. (“Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion”) [MTP].
The Manchester Guardian, p.6 in “Books of the Week” wrote:
We owe sincere and large thanks to “Mark Twain” for writing and publishing this book [Budd, Contemporary 299]. Note: CY.
January 6 Monday – George W. Cable wrote to Sam from Northampton, Mass.
I have asked my publishers…to send you a copy of my Strange True Stories of Louisiana [Gribben 124]. Note: Strange True Stories of Louisiana by Cable was published in 1889.
January 5 Sunday – The New York Times, p.11 ran a long description of the life and biography of ex-senator from New York, Roscoe Conkling (1829-1888). Conkling’s biography was published by Webster & Co. Interestingly, Conkling and Sam had both opposed the 1876 candidacy of James G. Blaine.
The Charleston, S.C. Sunday News, p.5 under “New Books” praised CY:
January 4 Saturday – The Hartford Courant of Jan. 6, p.8 reported in “The Cliff Dwellers”:
January 3 Friday – In Hartford Sam met Edward Bellamy, author of Looking Backward: 2000-1887 (1888). Sylvester Baxter accompanied Bellamy at Sam’s invitation [MTHL 2: 622n2]. Bellamy and Baxter shared political sentiments.
Sam also wrote to Isabel Von Oppen, who had sent a manuscript. Sam wrote that he was “not connected with a magazine or other periodical” and would not be able to use her submission [MTP].
January 2 Thursday – Desmond O’Brien reviewed CY in the London weekly Truth, p.25, calling it,
…a bizarre book, full of all kinds of laughable and delightful incongruities — the most striking of its incongruities, however, being unconscious, grim, and disenchanting…. His fooling is admirable, and his preaching is admirable, but they are mutually destructive [Tenney 19].
January 1 Wednesday – Sam likely returned to Hartford after his night at the Author’s Club’s Watch Night.
Daniel Frohman wrote to Sam: “yes, the child named in Mr. Chatto’s letter is the one I am thinking of and who has already been written to” [MTP]. Note: relating to the P&P play; child actor not specified.
Joe Goodman wrote at 3 p.m. from N.Y. on Hoffman House stationery to Sam:
January – William Dean Howells, in Harper’s Monthly, “Editor’s Study,” p.319-21, praised CY.
Mr. Clemens, we call him, rather than Mark Twain, because we feel that in this book our arch-humorist imparts more of his personality than in anything else he has done. Here he is to the full the humorist, as we know him; but he is very much more, and his strong, indignant, often infuriate hate of injustice, and his love of equality, burn hot through the manifold adventures and experiences of the tale. …
December 31 Tuesday – Sam attended the Author’s Club Watch Night event in New York City and told a story. George Cary Eggleston had invited Sam on Dec. 19 and recalled the event: