Day By Day Dates

November 29 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Montreal to Livy.

November 30 Wednesday – Sam’s 46th birthday. Osgood and Sam were guests of Mr. & Mrs. Samuel Dawson, of Dawson Brothers, Sam’s Canadian publisher. Sam wrote Livy on Dec. 1 that the gathering was “A crowd of very nice people there. We staid till 11” [MTP].

December – The Prince and the Pauper was published in Germany by Tauchnitz [MTNJ 2: 382n77]. The book was reviewed by Hjalmar Boyesen in the December issue of the Atlantic.

December 1 Thursday – Date of British copyright secured for The Prince and the Pauper [MTNJ 2: 403n165].

In the evening, Sam wrote from Montreal to Livy. Sam and Osgood had been:

December 2 Friday – Sam and James R. Osgood began a three-day excursion a little over a hundred miles to Quebec, arriving at night and staying at the old Russell Hotel (see insert; closed in 1925) [MTNJ 2: 413n181].

Sam wrote from Quebec to Livy at midnight:

December 3 Saturday – The official U.S. publication date for Prince and the Pauper [Nov 9 letter to David Gray, MTP].

In Canada, from Sam’s notebook: McShane & Stephens were both elected.

Snowing lightly—girls slipping down everywhere, sidewalks so icy. —on their way to school.

This is the foulest hotel in some respects in Am.

December 4 Sunday – Sam wrote from Quebec to Livy [MTLP 409].

December 6 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Montreal to Livy. He was “pegging away” at a speech for Thursday night, but missed the family:

“I would most powerfully like to see you & the rats. I think of Jean sometimes, too; & to-day I happened to think of the dog. I love you, darling” [MTP].

December 7 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Montreal to Livy at midnight. He just finished the speech for the next night but what he’d added that day made it too long, so he went back to what he had the day before and memorized it. He noted that he was “safe because I wind up in French—if one may call it that” [MTP].

December 8 Thursday – Sam wrote from Montreal to James R. Osgood, sending the speech he was to give that evening. Sam would telegraph if for some reason he did not give it, otherwise Osgood was to “insert a portion or all of the speech in the Boston Herald, or elsewhere,—or in the wastebasket.” Sam added that he would leave for Boston at 8.30 the next morning [MTP].

December 9 Friday – Sam left Montreal for Hartford at 8:30 AM [Dec. 8 letter to Osgood]. It was a day-long trip by rail.

December 10 Saturday – The New York Times wrote up the Montreal dinner of Dec. 8. Headlines:

MARK TWAIN IN MONTREAL

HIS SPEECH AT THE BANQUET IN HIS HONOR.

AN EXPLANATION HOW HE CAME TO BE IN AN OSTENSIBLY FOREIGN LAND – LOOKING FORWARD TO THE GOOD TIMES COMING WHEN LITERARY PROPERTY WILL BE AS SACRED AT WHISKY

December 11 Sunday – Joe Goodman wrote to Sam, relating a visit to see Denis E. McCarthy, who’d asked him to go to San Francisco, as he had serious medical problems. Turned out that Denis had improved and the causes of his enlarged heart, etc. were from drinking. He wrote of meeting Senator John P. Jones and of his offers of positions he thought he could get Joe until the vineyard paid [MTP].

December 12 Monday – The official date of publication for P&P. Two copies were placed with the Copyright Office, Library of Congress [Hirst, “A Note on the Text” Oxford edition, 1996].

Sam wrote from Hartford to Joel Chandler Harris in Atlanta.

I judge you haven’t received my new book yet—however, you will in a day or two. Meantime you must not take it ill if I drop Osgood a hint about your proposed story of slave life.....

December 13 Tuesday – Tiffany & Co. wrote acknowledging receipt of another thousand [MTP].

Murat Halstead for Cincinnati Commercial Gazette wrote a nearly illegible letter, honored here by omitting the few words discerned [MTP].

December 14 Wednesday – Jeannette L. Gilder wrote:

December 15 Thursday – Henry Clay Trumbull for Philadelphia Sunday School wrote: “I am so glad you can come on the 21st. I want a few friends to come in and see you that evening” [MTP].

December 16 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, who had been ill and unable to attend the Montreal dinner honoring Sam as planned.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,—It was a sharp disappointment—your inability to connect, on the Canadian raid. What a gaudy good time we should have had!

Disappointed, again, when I got back to Boston; for I was promising myself half an hour’s look at you, in Belmont; but your note to Osgood showed that that could not be allowed yet.

December 17 Saturday – Livy wrote to Franklin Whitmore saying her “visit with him the other day was too short” and hoped he would come again “soon, very soon.” It’s uncertain the specific day Whitmore visited, but it may have been while Sam was away. Signed, “Always your loving friend” [MTP].

Francis Kenney wrote to Sam, enclosed in Kenney Aug. 1, 1882 [MTP].

December 18 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to the editor of the Springfield Republican regarding the criticism of that paper to his trip to Canada to obtain copyright there.

December 19 Monday – In Cambridge, Mass., where he was staying to be near his doctor, William Dean Howells was recovering from a five-week illness. He wrote to Sam:

December 20 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his sister Pamela Moffett.

Merry Christmas to you all. I enclose $25. Livy & I desire you to Christmasize it for yourself & Ma. We would do it ourselves, but we are at a loss to select.

Charley is here to-night, & is well. All our tribe are well & flourishing. I go to Philadelphia tomorrow—the last banquet I’m going to attend this year, anyway [MTBus 180].

December 21 Wednesday – Sam left Hartford and traveled to Philadelphia [MTBus 180]. Note: Sam’s Dec. 20 letter to Miss Trowbridge said he left on that day, while his letter of the same date to his sister stated he was going to Philadelphia “tomorrow.”

December 22 Thursday – Sam spoke at the New England Society in Philadelphia. His subject was “Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims” [Fatout, MT Speaking 162-5]. Sam had been invited by Henry Clay Trumbull, a Congregational clergyman, and brother of James Hammond Trumbull, the Hartford scholar who wrote the multi-lingual chapter headings for The Gilded Age.

December 23 Friday – Livy wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster about shipping Christmas gifts and packages shipped. She added that Sam was gone [MTBus 181]. He returned later this day from Philadelphia since he sent an unidentified person this aphorism: “Never put off till tomorrow what can be done day after tomorrow just as well” [MTP].