May 27 Sunday – The Governor General and Princess Louise went to church, while Sam played billiards with Lord Frederick Hervey. After lunch Sam played “a few games of billiards” with Miss Hervey…
May 24 Thursday – Sam wrote from Government House, Ottawa to Livy, about how well he got along with Princess Louise and how he’d tried hard not to commit any social blunders [LLMT 215-6].
May 23 Wednesday – Sam got up at 6:30 AM and went to Samuel E. Dawson’s (his Canadian publisher) house to borrow his “best black frock coat” to “wear it at luncheons in Ottawa”. Then Sam took an 8:30 AM train to Ottawa, arriving at noon [May 22 letter to Livy].
May 22 Tuesday – After watching more of the billiards tournament, Sam left for Canada, reaching Montreal at 8:30 in the evening. He wrote from Montreal to Livy about a mix-up in the trains that caused him and Osgood to be on different trains [MTP].
May 21 Monday –Sam and James R. Osgood enjoyed the first two days of the Collender’s billiard tournament at Tammany Hall. The contests continued for some eleven days, with Maurice Daly the final winner [N.Y. Times, “Prizes for Billiard Experts” May 30, 1883 p.3].
May 20 Sunday – Sam and James R. Osgood traveled from Hartford to New York City to watch Collender’s great billiard tournament at Tammany Hall [MTBus 214].
May 19 Saturday – Sam wrote two drafts of a telegram to be sent from Hartford to John Douglas Sutherland Campbell (Marquis of Lorne; 1845-1914), apologizing for his delay after receiving a confused message second hand by telephone. After a:
“…long delay it has come to me correctly & lucidly in manuscript form & I hasten to accept your lordship’s kind invitation & say I shall do myself the honor to report in Ottawa” [MTP].
May 18 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, who wrote from Venice, Italy on Apr. 22 about negotiations with Marshall Mallory for the Colonel Sellers as a Scientist play.
May 17 Thursday – Life on the Mississippi was issued by the James R. Osgood & Co. (Two copies were deposited with the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress). Sales before issue barely reached 30,000, a number that enraged Sam [Powers, MT A Life 469; Hirst, “A Note on the Text” Oxford edition, 1996]. Note: under old subscription models, it was thought 40,000 sales before release was a good result.
May 15 Tuesday – Robert Hirst gives this as the date the “earliest copies of the first edition [LM] were published” [“A Note on the Text” Oxford edition, 1996]. The first review, this from the Hartford Courant, p.1: