May 11 Sunday – Sam responded from Hartford to an unidentified person, that he could not “remember having ever been on a school committee in Virginia City…” nor did he “remember knowing a man in Virginia City named Freeborn.” Sam did know a man by that name in San Francisco and figured he’d be “quite sixty years old, now, if alive” [MTP].
May 10 Saturday – Sam had not forgotten the new Sellers play.
May 9 Friday – Lorenz Rohr (1846-1902) editor of the Kansas Freie Presse wrote to Sam, sending him a translation of the song, “Lorelei” [MTP]. Note: Sam replied on May 12. He wrote on the env., “Another Lorelei ass.”
May 8 Thursday – Charles A. Dana for The New York Sun wrote: “There is no use talking. I don’t see any way but for you to write me two or three short stories not exceeding ten or twenty thousand words apiece. As for pay I will agree that you shall have more than you ever got and you can print them in a book as much as you like afterwards” and “I have got Henry James and Bret Harte, and I must have you” [MTP].
May 7 Wednesday – Sam had received and approved of the cover for HF. He wrote from Hartford to Webster of his approval, with one detail: “the boy’s mouth is a trifle more Irishy than necessary.” Edward W. Kemble had been chosen as the artist for the book and had to rework many illustrations from such objections [MTLTP 174]. As always, Webster handled the details and the dirty work.
May 6 Tuesday – Howells had received and read Sam’s dramatization of P&P and wrote on May 4 that it was “altogether too thin and slight.” He felt Sam needed to fill in more from the book and that overall it was too short, and “the parlance is not sufficiently ‘early English’.” Sam replied:
“Well, then, some day I’ll try to remedy the play, but I’d rather take a dose of medicine. I am greatly obliged to you for reading it & telling me” [MTHL 2: 486].
May 5 Monday ca. – In his Autobiography, Sam gives “about the 5th of May” as the date “the crash came and several Grant families found themselves absolutely penniless” from the fraud of “a brisk young man by the name of Ferdinand Ward” [MTA 1: 29-30]. This event would greatly affect Sam’s life.
Worden & Co. wrote to Sam on his account [MTP].
May 4 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to the Gerhardts in Paris, France. Sam disclosed the family wouldn’t be traveling to Europe this year—pleading poverty.
We have made but few investments in the last few years which have not turned out badly. Our losses during the past three years have been prodigious.
May 3 Saturday – Hubbard & Farmer per Way bankers & brokers advised stock purchases [MTP].
May 1 Thursday – Sam and Charles Webster executed “some kind of informal agreement concerning the publication of Huckleberry Finn” [MTLTP 169]. Sam would be his own publisher, through Webster. The Charles L. Webster & Co. was created as a new subscription publishing house during May [Emerson 153].