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 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 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 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 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”
August 12 Friday – Sam wrote twice from Elmira to Charles Webster. The longest letter asked him to negotiate with the remodelers William & Robert Garvie and James Ahern on work in progress at the Farmington Avenue house, principally a remodel of the kitchen. Sam gave quite a long laundry list of things to check, recheck, prove and consider.
August 11 Thursday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Benjamin H. Ticknor, enclosing a check for $850.26 for publishing costs, probably for P&P and its circular. Ticknor had requested sales points for a circular and Sam replied that he wasn’t the best man to give them, that he should “leave it alone ten days & then get the points from Osgood & Anthony, & a suggestion or two from Howells…” [MTP]. (See Aug.14.)
August 10 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Joel Chandler Harris in Atlanta, who wrote Sam on Aug. 4 [MTLP 401].
August 9 Tuesday – Marie A. Brown wrote from Chicago to Sam: “Your advice to authors—to publish themselves and to give a commission to instead of receiving it from publishers—is invaluable, and I long to follow it.” She asked his further advice about her six historical novels from the Swedish [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “A Curiosity"
August 8 Monday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Franklin Whitmore. He complained of lumbago from “Carrying Jean up & down in the car, on that red-hot 12 hour trip.” He told of Jean’s whimpering and of Susy and Clara’s stoicism during the ordeal.