August 23, 1881 Tuesday

August 23 Tuesday – Sam wrote a short note from Elmira to Charles Webster, saying he was returning the “tile patterns….They do not happen to be the right ones.” Wasn’t there a “great bound book—a multitude of designs to select from”? [MTP].

August 22, 1881 Monday 

August 22 Monday – Sam wrote from Elmira to James R. Osgood. Sam was planning a trip to Boston.

“All right—but before you order a room for me at the Vendôme, I wish you’d ask Howells if Mrs. Howells didn’t mean to let me come to her house in case Mrs. Clemens couldn’t ”[MTP].

Hubbard & Farmer bankers & brokers wrote a notice they’d bought 100 Denver & Rio Grande at 85 for his account [MTP].

August 21, 1881 Sunday

August 21 Sunday – Karl & Hattie J. Gerhardt wrote to Sam and Livy that “everything with us goes along about the same.” She also wrote of working on a child’s bust (Jean Clemens?) and asked if she should “have a photo taken of it while it was clay so that alteration can be made?” [MTP].

August 19, 1881 Friday

August 19 Friday – Charles Eliot Norton wrote to Clemens, hoping they would see him before Wednesday, and asking what day he might expect him for the festival [MTP].

John Esten Cooke wrote from Boyce, Va. to thank Clemens for info on Hartford publishing houses, but there wasn’t much to encourage publishing there. Cooke was likely a book agent for he stated that they would do well with Sam’s latest book [MTP].

August 17, 1881 Wednesday

August 17 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster. Evidently Webster had recommending closing up the Kaolatype business, but Sam poured good money after bad.

You wish to know when I shall “close up?” When the business pays me $5,000 a year clear profit. Not before. The brass alone shall pay me more than that, before I am done with it….

August 16, 1881 Tuesday

August 16 Tuesday – In Belmont, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam:

Your Ashfield audience will be the farmer-folks of the region, quiet and dull on top, but full of grit and fun; they’re fond of speaking, and rather cultivated, but not spoiled. They know you, like a book, and you can trust all your points to them. Their life is one of deadly solitude and suffocating frugality; but they are smart. They will stand lots of human nature from you [MTHL 1: 365].

August 15, 1881 Monday

August 15 Monday – Sam wrote a short note from Hartford to Benjamin H. Ticknor, agreeing with Ticknor’s processing an engraving cut down to the required reduction. Sam would wait for Chapter 1 of P&P to evaluate the book fully illustrated consecutively [MTP].

August 14, 1881 Sunday

August 14 Sunday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Benjamin H. Ticknor about the advertising circular for P&P, and the illustrations he’d chosen for a run of 20 special books. Frank T. Merrill was the principal illustrator of the book and Sam wrote:

August 13, 1881 Saturday

August 13 Saturday – A.W. Johnson wrote from Salisbury, Mo. to tell Clemens of his wife’s connections to Florida, Mo. and of his love of Sam’s books [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “From a fellow native’s husband”

Mark Twain Club per Phil Hannagan sent a voluminous paper, “Twain Club Papers No 1” to Clemens [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Introduced by that lunatic Irishman of Carlow Castle”

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