May 13 Friday – In Auburndale, Mass. at Lee’s Hotel, Howells answered Sam’s May 9 letter.
I will write the introduction, and perhaps the Harpers will let me sign it. But I should prefer to do it after I’d seen some proof of the book, for that thing’s got cold in my mind now. Save some of the beginning for four or five or six pp., and I’ll have it ready [MTHL 2: 593].
Check # Payee Amount [Notes]
May 12 Thursday – William L. Alden from the U.S. Consulate in Rome, wrote to Sam offering an autobiography of Garibaldi “of 89 chapters, and 693 pages of MS” [MTLTP 218n1 (top)].
Check # Payee Amount [Notes]
3691 Mssrs Wm Wander & Son 9.00 Pianos & Tuning
May 11 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Charles Webster:
Joe Jefferson has written his Autobiography! You see, by George we’ve got to keep places open for great books; they spring up in the most unexpected places. [¶] I will read for “literary quality,” & then take it down to you on the 18th, to be read for pecuniary quality…[MTP].
The Peabody’s story as one of the grandest, most historic hotels in downtown Memphis dates back to 1869 when the original Peabody Hotel opened on the corner of Main & Monroe, immediately becoming the social and business hub of Memphis. In 1925 a newer, grander Peabody was built at its present location of Union and 2nd Street, continuing the legacy of the "South's Grand Hotel." It was 1933 when ducks were originally placed in the hotel's lobby fountain, setting in motion an 85-year tradition that continues today with the March of the Peabody Ducks.
See The Life of Mark Twain: The Early Years, 1835-1871 pages 269-71
Much as he had been galled by the deadly routine of the schoolroom and the print shop, Sam was aghast at the compromises countenanced in the competitive newspaper market of San Francisco. “Finally there was an event,” a blatant act of censorship by Barnes of one of his articles, or so Sam recalled in 1906:
PACIFIC COAST—CONCLUDED., CHINAMEN,
One of California's curiosities the people in the States will some day become familiar with through the Pacific Railroad, I mean the Chinamen. California contains 70,000 of them, and every ship brings more There is a Chinese quarter in every city and village in California and Nevada, for Boards of Aldermen will not allow them to live all around town just wherever they to locate. ‘This is not a hardship, for they prefer to herd together.
PECULIARITIES ARD SUPERSTITIONS
The town of Como was established in late 1862, during the gold rush in Palmyra Mining District.
The Occidental Hotel opened in 1861 in San Francisco, California. It was destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fire of 1906.[1] It was one of the many hotels named Occidental in the United States, and it was among the few luxury hotels in San Francisco that catered to wealthy travelers.
The Lick House was one of San Francisco's first luxury hotels, built by the piano maker/real estate investor James Lick, who was one of California's wealthiest men of his day. It was one of a cluster of luxury hotels erected in San Francisco during the early-to-mid-1860s, the others being the Russ House (completed in 1862), Occidental Hotel. and Cosmopolitan Hotel (1865). These hotels reflected the city's less rambunctious and more affluent character brought about by Gold Rush prosperity.