December 20 Wednesday – Upon receipt of Harte’s Dec. 16 letter about Parsloe’s interest, Sam wrote a postcard from Hartford to his attorney, Charles E. Perkins. Sam was going to New York the next day and return Saturday. He hoped the Charles Parsloe contracts would be ready then and would try to bring Parsloe back to Hartford.
December 18 Monday – Xantippe (“Tip”) Saunders wrote and accepted Sam’s invitation to stay with the family over the holidays. She agreed to meet him “at the appointed time & place,” which MTPO (Notes with Dec. 20 to Perkins) says was “probably Grand Central Station, in order to take the 11 A.M. train.” Note: It’s unknown which day Sam met her there, but he went to New York on Dec. 21 and returned Dec.
December 16 Saturday – Bret Harte wrote from New York to Sam about Parsloe showing up for a 10:30 A.M. appointment at 3 P.M. Bret read Parsloe “those portions of the 1st & 2d acts that indicated his role, and he expressed himself satisfied with it, and competent to take it in hand.” Harte was conciliatory, knowing he had ruffled feathers while staying with the Clemens family:
December 15 Friday – Moncure Conway wrote to Sam. In part:
December 14 Thursday – Sam acted as auctioneer at the Union’s Fair in Hartford.
“The Sale of the Jabberwocks”
December 13 Wednesday – Sam dictated a letter in Hartford through Fanny Hesse to Moncure Conway. Sam had discovered that English copyright in Canada needed to be recorded in Canada within 60 days after publication in England. So, his English copyright was worthless in Canada.
December 12 Tuesday – William Borden, president of the New England Society in the City of New York, wrote to Sam, confirming his agreement to speak at their annual dinner on Dec. 22, and waiving their normal ten-minute rule: “…for I am quite sure that we cant get too much of the author of Innocents Abroad” [MTPO Notes with Dec. 20 to Perkins].
December 11 Monday – Charles Perkins, Sam’s attorney, had advised that John T. Raymond was still waiting for a contract for the next season. Sam asked if Perkins would draw it and let him see it first; also that he had another contract to be drawn and a deed for Perkins to squint at [MTLE 1: 153].
December 9 Saturday – Moncure Conway wrote to Sam offering followup in the Belford piracy matter for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Belford was doubtful Sam’s copyright was valid in Canada, but Chatto would continue the fight. Legal remedies open to Sam and Chatto would only led to a Pyrrhic victory, since penalties for violation of the 1875 Canadian copyright act were small, and the damage done to U.S.
December 8 Friday – The release date for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer [Camfield, bibliog.]. Hirst gives this as the date “the earliest copies of the first edition came from the bindery” [“A Note on the Text” Oxford edition, 1996]. Only 23,638 copies were sold the first year, and less than 29,000 by the end of 1879, providing only half the income of The Gilded Age [Emerson 95].