• September 29, 1868 Tuesday

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    September 29 Tuesday – Sam left Elmira for New YorkLivy wrote to Alice Hooker: “Mr Clemens spent two days here on the way to Hartford from St. Louis; he intended to remain one day” [Stowe-Day collection per Tenney].

  • October 1868

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    October – The first appearance of “A Californian Abroad – A Medieval Romance” ran in the Overland Monthly. This piece was later collected in IA [Slotta 15].

  • October 5–30, 1868 Friday

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    October 530 Friday – In Hartford, sometime between these dates, Sam wrote a sort of riddle to Frank Fuller:

    “If a man were to signify however which he was not & could not if he had the power, which being denied him he will endeavor anyhow, merely because it don’t, would you? I should think not” [MTL 2: 260].

  • October 11, 1868 Sunday

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    October 11 Sunday  Mrs. Elisha Bliss introduced Sam to Rev. Joseph Hopkins Twichell (1838-1918) at the home of one of Twichell’s congregation [MTL 2: 269n4]. From Paine’s account of the meeting:

    He returned to Hartford to look after the progress of his book. Some of it was being put into type, and with his mechanical knowledge of such things he was naturally interested in the process.

  • October 12, 1868 Monday 

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    October 12 Monday  Sam wrote from Hartford to Mary Mason Fairbanks. Sam seemed anxious to reassure Mary that his lecture on the excursion would not be objectionable to her, and justified scattering “preposterous yarns” throughout the lecture [MTL 2: 262-5].

  • October 18, 1868 Sunday

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    October 18 Sunday  Sam wrote from Hartford to Livy. He engaged in name-dropping with Rev. Joseph H. Twichell, whom he met a week before. Sam had determined to live up to the standards of the Langdons in order to win Livy. He cheerfully accepted being “rebuked” by Livy, in much the same spirit he’d always done with his mother and also with Mary Fairbanks. It wasn’t entirely a game with Sam, however much he enjoyed the cycle.

  • October 19, 1868 Monday

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    October 19 Monday  Sam spent the afternoon and evening with the Twichells, driving “10 miles out in the country & back.” Sam and Rev. and Mrs. Twichell were accompanied by “two young ladies, sisters of Mrs. T” [MTL 2: 272].

  • October 21, 1868 Wednesday

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    October 21 Wednesday – Sam met with Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield (Mass.) Daily Republican and of the Weekly Republican, founded by his father. Bowles had just returned from the west and was interested in the Pacific coast [MTL 3: 267n1]. In an article Sam wrote dated Oct. 22, he described an International Boat Race (see Nov 15 entry.)

  • October 24?–27, 1868 Tuesday

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    October 24?27 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his mother and family about Twichell, his book’s scheduled publication in March, and his desire to begin lecturing soon at Cleveland [MTL 2: 270-1]. Lorch says Sam had received an invitation to lecture there from Colonel John F.

  • October 30, 1868 Friday

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    October 30 Friday  Sam wrote from Hartford to Livy about his outing of the previous Monday, more raves about Twichell, spiritual matters, and his upcoming plans to lecture. About Mary Fairbanks, Sam wrote: “I like to tease her because I like her so.” He added a P.S.

  • October 31, 1868 Saturday 

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    October 31 Saturday  Sam wrote from New York to Mary Mason Fairbanks: “I’ll be in Cleveland Nov.8—lecture there Nov. 17—so you can get ready to scratch. I’ll expunge every word you want scratched out, cheerfully” [MTL 2: 277].

  • November 1868

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    November  George Routledge & Sons, later Sam’s authorized British publisher, published Sam’s story, “Cannibalism in the Cars” in an English journal, Broadway: A London Magazine [Wilson 15]. NoteGeorge Routledge (1812-1888); Edmund Routledge (1843-1899); Robert Warne Routledge (1837?-1899).

  • November 3, 1868 Tuesday

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    November 3 Tuesday  Sam made social calls in NYC to a friend of Livy’s, Fidele (Mrs. Henry) Brooks (b.1837), and to longtime Hannibal friends of the family, the George Washington Wiley (b.1813?) family. He ate dinner there and walked back to the Everett House, some 28 blocks in “weather cold as the mischief” [MTL 2: 278].

  • November 4, 1868 Wednesday

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    November 4 Wednesday – Sam wrote from New York to his mother of his visit to the Wiley home the day before, and on a visit this day to another Hannibal family acquaintance, Mrs. Garth in Brooklyn, mother of John H. Garth (1837-1899), whose pretty wife, Helen Kercheval (1838-1923), had been a schoolmate of Sam’s. Sam had hoped to see John and Helen but they had moved to Baltimore [MTL 2: 279; Sanborn 408-9].

  • November 7, 1868 Saturday

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    November 7 Saturday – Sam’s article “Private Habits of Horace Greeley” was printed in Spirit of the Times [Camfield, bibliog.]. This was a weekly newspaper published in New York City, which aimed for an upper-class readership made up largely of sportsmen. The Spirit also contained humorous articles, much of it based on frontier folklore. Theatre news was also a major component. Emerson calls the Greeley article “one of the funniest pieces yet written,” and “good-natured fun” [56].