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:
December 30 Monday – Kingsland Smith of the St. Paul Roller Mill Co. wrote to Sam about dividends forthcoming and a reorganization of the company. Sam would stand to get about $5,000 in stock of the new company. Smith wrote, “Please advise if you wish to withdraw entirely or if you would like to continue” [MTP] Note: Sam would not have received this notice until after the new year, since it was postmarked from St. Paul, Minn.
December 29 Sunday – In Boston, William Dean Howells wrote to Sam:
I have just heated myself up with your righteous wrath about our indifference to the Brazilian Republic. But it seems to me that you ignore the real reason for it which is that there is no longer an American Republic, but an aristocracy-loving oligarchy in place of it. Why should our Money-bags rejoice in the explosion of a Wind-bag?
December 28 Saturday – Sam’s notebook entry suggests travel:
[Chk #] 4399. Dec. 28. Ticket office RR, for 2000 miles, $40 [3: 537].
John (“Jock”) Brown, son of the late Dr. John Brown, wrote to Sam from Edinburgh:
December 27 Friday – In Hartford, Sam & Livy thanked Olivia Lewis Langdon for books sent and for her usual generous Christmas check:
]Sam:] Mother Dear, accept my very best thanks for the noble volumes. The valuable part of our library is complete now.
December 25 Wednesday – Christmas – Sam inscribed a copy of CY to Susan Corey: Miss Susan Corey with the compliments of the Author, Xmas, 1889 / Yours Truly Mark Twain [MTP].
Sam also inscribed a half-morocco copy of CY to Maria C. Gay: Mrs. Julius Gay with the compliments of the author. Xmas, 1889 [MTP]