December 8 Tuesday – Sam wrote a short note from Hartford to Orion, sending $25 and a Christmas greeting, saying the money represented,
“…what they would buy & send you if they warn’t so dam busy” [MTP].
Sam also wrote, or allowed to be written in his behalf, from Hartford to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, declining an invitation to some event [MTP].
December 7 Monday – Back in Hartford, probably over the weekend, Sam wrote to Howells about the “Library of Humor” book. Sam suggested Howells write the preface now, and then:
“…we can put the Library away, with cheerful souls, knowing that at any time now or far away, there’s nothing in the way of her coming out whenever we want her to.”
December 6 Sunday – Brander Matthews wrote to Sam: “Bunner is to be married in Jan. So he comes here to breakfast, Thursday, Dec 17th at 1 P.M. Couldn’t you find some imperative business which will demand your presence in this city on the 17th…The breakfast will be very informal—you may wear your slippers!” [MTP].
December 5 Saturday – In Boston, Howells answered that he’d received the check, but didn’t think he could keep it. His dilemma was that Harpers, whom he’d recently contracted with, would not allow him to have his name on the title page of another publisher’s work, and that if there was no definite plan to publish, he felt the money did not belong to him.
December 3 Thursday – Sam wrote from New York City to Livy. He had received Susy’s letter telling of the death of Mary Burton. He related the night before at Laffan’s, and Mrs. Grant’s, and wrote of the Japanese Village in Madison Square Garden that he wanted to show Livy when she came down the following week [MTP].
December 2 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, asking to be reminded should Webster forget to send the $2,000 that Howells had requested. Sam made reference to “these first days of publication” of Grant’s Memoirs and gave specific shipping numbers—another argument for Dec. 1 being the correct publication date.
December 1 Tuesday – Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, Vol. 1 was officially published [MTNJ 3: 210n81]. Note: Powers [504] and Perry [233] each give the publication date as Dec. 10. However, the Library of America edition of Grant’s Memoirs gives these statistics: “The first volume was published December 1, 1885, in five bindings: cloth at $7.00 a set; sheep, $9.00; half-morocco, $11.00; full-morocco, $18.00; and tree calf, $25.00.”
December – Sam wrote from Hartford to an unidentified person:
“There is not a copy to be had. I bought the plates & stock 4 years ago & destroyed them” [MTP]. Note: Sam may have referred to The Jumping Frog book or Mark Twain’s Burlesque Autobiography.
November 30 Monday – Sam’s 50th birthday. Two volumes of Francis Parkman’s Montcalm and Wolfe (1885) were inscribed: “Saml. L. Clemens/ Hartford/ Conn./ Nov. 30th 1885” [Gribben 534].
Frederick D. Grant wrote that “two mistakes have been made in the placing of maps and notes in the II volume” [MTP].
E.J. Hamersley wrote birthday wishes [MTP].
November 29 Sunday – Sam wrote to Frank R. Stockton, thanking him for his good wishes [AMT 2: 576].
The Critic ran affectionate essays by Charles Dudley Warner, Oliver Wendell Holmes (a poem), Joel Chandler Harris, and Frank P. Stockton on the eve of Sam’s 50th birthday. These were reprinted in many newspapers, even in the London Pall Mall Gazette of Dec. 12, 1885.