November 11 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Frank Fuller, advising him not to pay Literary Life a cent to advertise for him. Sam wrote he’d “dropped that scheme I wrote you about” (on Sept. 26.) realizing it would take all the time from an “idle man.”
November 10 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster, directing him to send William Hamersley a check for $3,500—“it finishes the type-setter business in a very satisfactory fashion,” Sam wrote. Sam also instructed Webster to gather information regarding “General Grant’s literary powers—his happily proven ability as an author…” [MTP].
November 9 Monday – Henry Ward Beecher wrote scolding Sam and assured that the pages of Grant’s Memoirs he had were safe “and will soon be on their way home” [MTP].
James Redpath telegram: “Would like to see you tonight or tomorrow morning. Will be at the Allen House” [MTP].
November 8 Sunday – Sam entertained an old Virginia City friend, landlord, and editor of the Territorial Enterprise, Rollin M. Daggett (see Jan. 24, 1878). Daggett had been U.S. Minister to the Sandwich Islands. He stayed two days and showed Sam a manuscript he’d written with the King Kamehameha V of the Islands; Sam was interested in publishing it [Nov 11 to Webster, MTP].
November 7 Saturday – James Fraser Glück (1852-1897) for Young Men’s Assoc. Buffalo wrote to ask for the HF MS for display in their library [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Sent what was left of Huck Finn / Buffalo Library”
George E. Waring wrote on Union League Club notepaper, NYC that he’d come “near invading you last week. I shall have that pleasure soon” [MTP].
November 6 Friday – Frank Fuller wrote from Madison, NY. About being lied to by a solicitor that Clemens would “take charge of this magazine,” Literary Life. He then wrote of a financial scheme [MTP].
November 5 Thursday – Orion Clemens wrote check rec’d for $155. “Jean’s letter was very interesting. Tell her to write again”[MTP].
Rollin M. Daggett wrote from Washington DC about having Sam publish a book of “fifteen or twenty legends of love, chivalry and barbaric pomp, extending back for over seven hundred years,” he was preparing with King Kalakana of Hawaii [MTP].
November 4 Wednesday – Sam wrote a letter from New York City to Annie Eliot Trumbull, daughter of Hartford historian and philologist J. Hammond Trumbull, who wrote the multilingual chapter epigraphs for The Gilded Age. The Trumbulls were family friends. The letter was entirely in German [MTP].
November 3 Tuesday – George Walton Greene wrote to encourage Sam to attend the annual meeting of the Copyright League on Saturday [MTP].
The “Troy ass” R.L. Blakeman also wrote…from Troy NY. Only the envelope survives [MTP].
November 2 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster about a mix up with too many books sent to station masters on the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad—men who were involved in arranging “hotel” or “parlor” cars for the Clemens family when they traveled back and forth between Elmira and Hoboken. Griffith, A.