Elmira, Hartford and England: Day By Day

March 14 Saturday – Charles Kingsley, canon of Westminster, and unmarried elder daughter, Rose Georgiana, visited the Clemens family. Kingsley had come to America on a lecture tour [MTL 6: 32n1]. Note: Kingsley returned to England exhausted from the American tour, and died the next year, 1875.

March 15 and 16 Monday – Sam wrote to Thomas Bailey Aldrich, best known for his 1869, The Story of a Bad Boy, a sort of forerunner to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Sam read the book but claimed not to have been influenced by it and did not like the prose style [Rasmussen 7]. Aldrich had visited earlier in the month and had sought Sam’s help on his current work, Prudence Palfrey. After several pages of suggestions, Sam wrote the next day (Mar.

March 15 Friday – Bill paid dated Mar. 11 from D.S. Brooks & Sons, Hartford dealer in “hot air furnaces, cooking ranges, stoves and tin ware, low down grates and Marbelized slate mantles”; $18.50 for fireplace grate & pan, fitting [MTP]. Note: A cheery or cozy fire was an important comfort for the Clemens family.

March 18 Saturday – With Livy’s improvement, Sam & wife traveled to Quarry Farm, the home of Theodore and Susan Crane, Livy’s adopted sister.

March 18 Monday – Sam wrote to William Dean Howells, thanking him for sending his book, Their Wedding Journey. Sam wrote:

“I would like to send you a copy of my book, but I can’t get a copy myself, yet, because 30,000 people who have bought & paid for it have to have preference over the author” [MTL 5: 58].

Charles Dudley Warner gave RI a glowing review in the Hartford Courant:

March 18 Tuesday – Bill and receipt for $3 to Hawley & Goodrich & Co. for lost pocketbook [MTP].

March 18 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Orion. Captain Edgar “Ned” Wakeman had written to Sam asking him to write the story of Wakeman’s life. Sam’s response has been lost, but he wrote his brother:

“I have written him that you will edit his book & help him share the profits, & I will write the introduction & find a publisher” [MTL 6: 82].

March – Sam’s sketch “Roughing It” ran in American Publishing Co.’s in-house promotional monthly, American Publisher [Camfield, bibliog.]. Similar to Roughing It, Ch. 57.

March – Sometime during the month, Sam wrote from Hartford to Louisa I. Conrad, a neighbor in St. Louis in 1867. Sam’s letter is a humorous “RECIPE FOR MAKING A SCRAPBOOK” [MTL 5: 303].

March – Sometime this month Rosina Hay (1852?-1926), the German nursemaid, was hired. She would stay with the family for many years, and accompanied them on their trip to Europe in 1879 [MTNJ 2: 365n33]. Salsbury writes, “She was a Lutheran, had a lovely sense of humor and an easy, cordial laugh. She had good sense and great courage” [28]. Rosina would work for the Clemens family until she left to be married on Aug. 16, 1883 [AMT 2: 568].

March 19 Tuesday – “Tuesday’s child is full of grace,” goes the old verse, and on this Tuesday the most graceful of Sam’s children was born at Quarry Farm. Olivia Susan Clemens, known as “Susy,” was named for her grandmother, Olivia Lewis Langdon, and her aunt, Susan Langdon Crane.

March 19 Wednesday – Susy Clemens’ first birthday.

March 19 Thursday – Susy Clemens’ second birthday. See insert age 2-3.

Sam wrote from Hartford to Ainsworth R. Spofford, the Librarian of Congress. Sam wanted to publish a pamphlet (Mark Twain’s Sketches. Number One) and copyright both the contents and the engraved design on the cover. Would one copyright suffice? [MTL 6: 85].

March 2 Monday – In Cambridge, Mass. Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote:

March 20 Monday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Elisha Bliss and Orion Clemens. Sam included a contribution for the American Publisher, “The Old-Time Pony-Express of the Great Plains.”

“We are all here, & my wife has grown weak, stopped eating, & dropped back to where she was two weeks ago. But we’ve got all the help we want here” [MTL 4: 367-8].

March 20 Wednesday – Mary and Abel Fairbanks arrived at the Langdon home in Elmira and stayed several weeks [MTL 5: 60n1].

March 20 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Will Bowen, who had sent Sam an article about polar currents from Silas Bent, an oceanographer and formal naval officer. Sam thanked Will, and also explained his wife would not let him lecture anywhere.

“We sail for England May 17 & return in October—meantime we hope the most aggravating part of the house will be built & off our minds” [MTL 5: 320].

March 20 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to William Dean Howells to advise him of a house for sale near where the new house was being built. Sam wanted Howells or Aldrich to move to Hartford. The reply is not known, but neither man moved [MTL 6: 85].

Sam also wrote to Frank Fuller about making money from buying and publishing a manuscript:

March 21 Thursday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Elisha Bliss about the new book of sketches. Sam felt the Frog story should be left out. Bliss had consistently wanted the story included. Within a few days, Sam agreed to a deal with George Routledge & Sons to reprint his sketches in England. Sketch books would be published in 1874 and 1875 [MTL 5: 69-70].

March 21 Friday – Sam paid $3 to Hawley, Goodrich & Co. for special notebooks of his design [MTP].

March 22 Wednesday – In Elmira Sam wrote to Isaac E. Sheldon. Letter not extant but referred to in Sheldon’s Apr. 4. See entry.

March 22 Saturday – Sam purchased a small wedge of land along the eastern side of their lot and 40 feet on the south for $1,000, which increased his frontage on Farmington Avenue by twenty feet [MTL 5: 271n6; Salsbury 17].

March 23 Thursday – On or about this day John Henry Riley wrote to Sam on 19 pages on fragile yellow paper about his travels, beginning Jan. 7, 1871 from NYC for Liverpool, his time in London, then to the Cape on Feb. 19, with people, places & events along the way [MTP].

March 23 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Jerome B. Stillson (1841-1880), managing editor of the New York World and a native of Buffalo.

March 24 Friday – Joe Goodman arrived in Elmira for a visit. He would stay several months. He wrote along side Sam and critiqued the California Book (Roughing It) [MTL 4: 379n2]. Joe was a Godsend. He gave Sam positive reinforcement on the work just when Sam, after such a difficult year, doubted its worth.