October 29 Monday – Orion Clemens wrote from Keokuk to thank his brother for 3 checks, $42 each. He sent news of their mother heading home with R.F. Bower this afternoon [MTP].
October 27 Saturday – Based on his Oct. 31 letter, Howells and wife probably returned home to Cambridge after an overnight stay.
October 26 Friday – The Howellses traveled to Hartford and dined with the Charles Warners, then attended a reception for Yung Wing and his wife at the Clemens home [Twichell’s Journal, Yale; MTHL 1: 207n1]. (See Oct. 31 Howells to Sam entry)
Twichell’s journal: “thence to M.T’s after a trip to Yale” [Yale, copy at MTP].
October 25 Thursday – Andrew Chatto wrote of publishing business to Sam, sorry he’d sent the wrong edition of Arabian Nights, and pleased to have rec’d his “Idle Notes” [MTP].
October 24 Wednesday – Sam purchased books from James R. Osgood & Co., including: Early Travels in Palestine, etc. (1848), by Thomas Wright, Chronicles of the Crusades (1876), Abbot Ingulf of Crowland’s (d. 1109) Ingulph’s Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland (trans. 1854), and Huntington’s History of England (1853) [Gribben 789; 142; 308].
October 23 Tuesday – Davies & Co. wrote to Sam that they’d received the $112.06 and forwarded the engraving this day by express by A. Vorce, dealer in fine arts, as his instructions [MTP].
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].