October 20 Saturday – Twichell’s journal:
“Saw Charles Warren Stoddard the author at M.T’s” [Yale, copy at MTP].
Livy started a “visitor’s book” for the many callers to write in. Eight years later, on June 7, 1885, she turned it into a diary, “as we always forget to ask visitors to write in it.” Stoddard was the first to sign the visitor’s book: “Livy: First—the most” / yours always / Chas. Warren Stoddard”
October 19 Friday – Davies & Co. wrote to Sam. “We have since writing on 12th received draft endorsed to our order drawn by you in London 4th Oct 1872 for sixteen pounds, in payment for the engraving ‘Christ leaving the Prætorium.’ The note is drawn on Mess Geo Routledge & Sons, London” [MTP]. Note: they denied ever doing a commission on a time schedule, as Twain had claimed.
October 18 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Perkins, another communication on the engraving purchased five years before in London. Sam wanted Mr. D. Vorce to sell the engraving in New York [MTLE 2:176]. Note: engraving, “Christ leaving the Praetorium.”
October 17 Wednesday – Kate Cowan, Chicago schoolteacher, wrote to ask Sam “for a few interesting facts” of his life for her literary group [MTP].
October 15 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, whose Oct. 14 letter carried good news about his play starring Lawrence Barrett, a matinee idol. Sam had seen the reviews in the papers and answered:
October 14 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Perkins, offering to take the tardy engraving and pay no more than fifty dollars [MTLE 2:174]. (See Oct. 3 to 5 entries.)
Minnie L. Wakeman-Curtis wrote to thank Sam for his of Oct. 5; she understood his reply and that her father’s stories could never be the same in print as he told them [MTP].
October 12 Friday – Davies & Co. NYC wrote to advise Sam that “a box said to contain engraving has arrived from London”; they asked him to remit $112.31 [MTP]. Note: engraving, “Christ leaving the Praetorium.”
October 10 Wednesday – Phineas T. Barnum wrote to Sam, clipping from the Denver Post pasted at top: “Barnum seems to be quite an admirer of Pope and quotes him more than any other writer except Mark Twain”. “My dear Mark / You cant well have more begging letters than I do ….but here is a peculiar case.” He seems to have asked Twain for tips for his “lecture or talk” to a poor church on some specific case [MTP].
October 8 Monday – J.L. Goodloe wrote from Memphis to ask Sam to look over 400 pages of MS for him [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env “An absurd request”
October 7 Sunday – Howells inscribed a copy of Frederica Sophia Wilhemina, Margravine of Bayrueth’s memoirs, in two volumes: “S.L. Clemens, / from his friend / W.D. Howells / Cambridge, / Oct. 7, 1877” [Gribben 771].
Maze Edwards wrote to Sam reporting such low receipts on Ah Sin that an infusion of $400 would be needed to keep it going till the end of the season [Duckett 158].