January 29 Friday – Sam wrote to William Dean Howells, the letter unrecovered but enclosure by Charles Warren Stoddard, “Lingering in Venice” survives and may be read at [MTL 6: 630-6].

January 28 Thursday – In Hartford, Sam wrote to James Redpath:

Could you quietly jam this item into print somewhere without telling where you got the information?

“Mark Twain is writing a five-act drama, the scene of which is laid partly in San Francisco, & partly in the Nevada silver mines. The chief character in the piece is peculiarly American.”

I have a reason for wanting to set this item afloat [MTP, drop-in letters].

January 27 Wednesday – Sam sent a congratulatory telegram from Hartford to Charley Langdon on the birth of his second child, Jervis, the previous day. Charley was away with his mother at the Windsor Hotel in New York when Ida gave birth to baby Jervis in Elmira.

January 26 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Howells, who’d declined a Hartford visit in his letter of Jan. 24 [MTHL 1: 60-1]. Sam continued to wrangle a visit from Howells, who was pressed by duties at the Atlantic, and also stalled on his history of Venice project.

January 24 Sunday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote Sam that he “really can’t and mustn’t” leave his work to visit Hartford. From his wife’s tone, Howells understood the trip to New Orleans without Livy along would not be possible. He praised Sam’s “science of piloting,” saying “every word’s interesting” [MTHL 1: 61].

January 19 Tuesday – Phineas T. Barnum wrote to Sam. In part…

My dear Clemens / Yours recd I hope I sent you the letter from the man who was going on a lecturing tower!

I have heretofore destroyed a multitude of queer letters but henceforth will save them all for you.

I wonder if you have ever seen my great Hippodrome. If not I really hope you will have a chance to do so during the week or two that it will remain open. I enclose several “orders” to that end.

January 18 Monday – William D. Whitney responded to Sam’s inquiry of Charles Webster, but Whitney was unaware of Charles and could not give a character reference [MTL 6: 353]. Notes: Charles Webster and Annie Moffett were later married; Webster would be hired as Sam’s publisher. Webster would be stricken with trigeminal neuralgia, often called the “suicide disease” due to excruciating pain, which led to his death in 1891.

January 16 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to John L. Toole, English comedian he met in London in 1872. Through Sam, Toole was welcomed at the Lotos Club dinner on Aug. 6, 1874. Now Toole was appearing at the Roberts Opera House in Hartford. Sam regretted being unable to attend and invited Toole to dine with the family at 5 PM the next evening.

January 15 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Howells grateful that he’d liked the third installment of “Old Times,”  (his approval was in a Jan. 12 letter). Sam also sent the fourth installment, which ended with what Sam called a “snapper”—a sleepwalking pilot was observed skillfully directing the craft by two other pilots. One pilot remarked: “I never saw anything so gaudy before.

January 13 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to James R. Osgood, answering his invitation to a Jan. 20 dinner at the Nautilus Club in Boston. Sam answered:

“Indeed I wish I could go, but the madam has made me promise that I wouldn’t absent myself from home until this epidemical & dreadful membranous croup has quitted the atmosphere hereabouts” [MTL 6: 349].