December 24 Friday – In New York, Bret Harte wrote to Sam, asking a favor—to use his influence with Elisha Bliss to gain an additional $1,000 advance on his book, Gabriel Conroy. Harte reminded Sam of a day when their roles had been reversed, but believed that good times for him were coming.
December 23 Thursday – Joe Twichell wrote to Sam: “Andy Hammond (West Point cadet) is coming home Christmas bringing some fellows with him. I have invited him and them to dinner Monday. I don’t know yet that they will come, but if they do I want you to come over—you and Charley Warner—and dine with us also. It will be such a treat to the boys if you can” [MTP].
December 22 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to his mother-in-law, Olivia Lewis Langdon, thanking her for her gift of the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Sam had been “confined to the house & in the doctor’s clutches for about 3 weeks….” And that this was his first day out to shop and “selected some birds to send you for our Christmas” [MTL 6: 602].
December 21 Tuesday – Sam gave a reading at Twichell’s Asylum Hill Church, Hartford. The Hartford Courant of Thursday, Dec. 16, 1875, p.1 in an article titled “Christ Church Choir and Mark Twain” reported that Clemens had agreed to give some readings for benevolence on the following Tuesday [MTPO]. (Sam’s letter of Dec. 22 puts this in dispute, so the reading is conjectural.)
December 20 Monday – Twichell noted in his journal: “M.T. being sick with …dysentery” [Yale, copy at MTP].
December 16 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Moncure Conway, who had written advising that he’d be able to visit Hartford on Dec. 28-29. Conway had been visiting the Howellses in Cambridge. Sam replied: “Good! Give us both days—can’t you do that?” [MTL 6: 599]. Conway came and stayed four days, leaving on Dec. 31 [MTL 6: 600n2].
December 15 Wednesday – Moncure Conway wrote from NYC.
My dear Clemens, / I have been doneing my level best to see a day when I could promise myself the great pleasure of visiting you and your wife at Hartford; but only this morning it dawns on me that towards the last of this year—say about 28th–9th, I should be able to stop for a little if you shd be at home. Still I know it is Xmas time, and it may not be convenient, and of course you will let me know if such is the case.
December 12 Sunday – Frank D. Finlay wrote from Edinburgh to Sam. “The papers—and they never lie—say that you are coming over in spring. Are you? I shall be so dreadful glad if you are! I am living in Edinburgh until May….I have a spare room , and can put you up: and I have nothing to do, and we could have long ‘cam’ jaws and loaves together” [MTP].
December 9 Thursday – J. Ross Browne died in San Francisco, possibly of appendicitis. He was 54 [Browne 407].
John W. Hart wrote to Sam from State Prison awash in over-the-top prose. It all boils down to what Sam wrote on the envelope [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “From the burglar Hart describing the ship.” Hart had sent Sam a model ship made in prison.
December 7 and 9 Thursday – Sam’s letter to the Hartford Courant, “The Infant Asylum Fair,” was reprinted in the New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Boston Evening Journal, and the Boston Morning Journal [Camfield, bibliog.].