October 3 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to William Dean Howells about possible submissions for the Atlantic. Howells had written seeking “some such story as that colored one” for the January issue. Sam replied:
“…the house is still full of carpenters. So we’ll give it up. These carpenters are here for time & eternity; I am satisfied of that. I kill them when I get opportunities, but the builder goes & gets more.”
October – Sam inscribed a copy of John Campbell’s (1779-1861) Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal (1874) [Gribben 126].
September 30 Wednesday – William Dean Howells wrote from Cambridge, Mass. Sam asking for “some such as that colored” story “for our Jan’y number.” He congratulated Sam on President Grant’s enjoyment of the Col. Sellers character in the Gilded Age play; and said they’d enjoyed Charles & Susan Warner’s visit before they left for Europe [MTHL 1: 32].
September 29 Tuesday – In Hartford, Sam wrote to Frank Fuller, who evidently had written trying to engage Sam in a stage production. Sam replied:
My Dear Frank:
Many thanks for your letter & enclosures. If I had the time I would hurl myself in the drama, wholesale. But I must go on with my book. I do not know whether I could fit Mr. & Mrs. Barney Williams with characters or not, but I still think I could fit Bijou—though I must not be thinking about dramas, with this big book on my shoulders.
September 28 Monday – President Grant attended a performance of the Gilded Age play at the Park Theatre in New York.
September 26 Saturday – John E. Owens wrote from Boston to ask for production rights to a play in New Orleans for GA [MTP].
September 25 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to William Seaver, answering his note of Sept. 17.
“I knew you’d be glad the play was commended, & I hope that before this you & John Hay have been there & wept….Remember that darkey yarn I told you & Hay? Well, it has gone to the “Atlantic” & so you boys can’t gobble it, you see” [MTL 6: 245-6].
On or about this day Sam also wrote to James Redpath:
September 24 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Gov. William W. Belknap, about strategy to obtain an appointment to the Naval Academy for Samuel Moffett. They would try to gain the appointment through Keokuk, Iowa, even though Samuel had never lived there [MTL 6: 244].
September 23 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Robert Shelton Mackenzie, Irish novelist and since 1857 the literary and drama critic for the Philadelphia Press. Sam thanked Mackenzie on his “Correct idea of Col. Sellers,” and discussed the nature of the Sellers character, “drawn from life, not imagination—I ate the turnip dinner with him, years ago…” [MTL 6: 240].
September 21 Monday – The New York Daily Graphic ran a cartoon of Twain as a frog even though it was for the opening of the play, The Gilded Age (renamed Colonel Sellers); see insert.