Hartford House: Day By Day

June 29 Friday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Howells. Only the envelope survives [MTLE 2: 86].

June 3 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Mary Mason Fairbanks that he had decided to “remain away from the Centennial [in Philadelphia] altogether, for an interruption of my work is disastrous to it.”

June 3 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Thomas Bailey Aldrich, poet, novelist and editor who would succeed Howells as editor of the Atlantic in 1881. The Clemens family would leave for Quarry Farm on June 5 and Sam hoped to write a book there:

June 30 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Dr. Cornelius Agnew, asking if a summer at the seaside for Nell Kinearney would be a good thing. Nell was a neighbor with the diseased eye that doctors had recommended removing [MTL 6: 502]. Note: The Clemenses may have paid some of the medical expenses for the operation done in the fall.

June 30 Friday – Sam left Elmira and traveled to Philadelphia for the Centennial event, Congress of Authors.

June 30 Saturday – In Conanicut, R.I., Howells wrote to Sam, perhaps answering his of June 29. Howells wrote of his recent trip to Quebec and of breakfasting with President Hayes during his recent to Boston and Newport. Howells loved Sam’s pieces about the Bermuda trip:

June 4 Friday – Phineas T. Barnum invited the Clemenses to spend the 5th of July with them to celebrate his 45th birthday. He added: “P.S. The ‘queer letters’ are accumulating” [MTP]. Note: Clemens had asked several people to save strange letters sent to them.

June 4 Sunday – Information Wanted and Other Sketches by Mark Twain was published by George Routledge and Sons, London during the year. [Johnson 41-2]. Note: He gives June 4, 1876 as the earliest presentation copy found.

June 4 Monday – Sam wrote an almost reverent letter from Hartford to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, soliciting his help to obtain the Swiss mission for Howells.

June 5 Tuesday – In Hartford in the evening, Sam attended William H. Gillette’s performance at Seminary Hall. The Courant of June 6, p.2 reported the event:

June 6 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells. The move to Elmira had been delayed a day, but Sam wrote they were leaving that day.

June 7 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Cornelius R. Agnew, a New York specialist of the eye and ear, in behalf of a neighbor, Nell Kinearney. Sam mentioned Dr. Starr and Dr. Bowen on the case [MTL 6: 490].

June 7 Wednesday – Eugene Holby wrote from Springfield to invite Sam to lecture there [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “NO”

June 7 Thursday – The Clemenses rode the train ten hours and arrived at the Langdon home in Elmira.

Henry Whitney Cleveland (1836-1907) wrote from N.Y.C. the first of six letters to Clemens, who became irritated with him to the point of calling him the “Reverend D—d tramp.”

June 8 Tuesday – Clara Clemens’ first birthday. In Hartford Sam wrote to William F. Gill, warning him again against printing “a single line” of his in one of Gill’s books [MTL 6: 494-5].

June 8 Thursday – Clara Clemens’ second birthday.

June 8 Friday – Clara Clemens’ third birthday.

June 9 Wednesday – Bill paid to Amos Larned & Co. for $2.50 [MTP].

Orion Clemens wrote to Sam, having arrived in St. Charles, Mo. from Louisville the night before.

…. The Ford matter is in such a confused tangle that it is a pleasure to work with it. This reminded me that you said love of the work itself was the thing. As I really like to work with law matters I have decided if you are willing, to endeavor to push myself into the practice of law in Keokuk…to open a law office there. …

June 9 Friday – Chatto & Windus, London issued the English edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a full six months ahead of the U.S. release [MTPO Notes with Nov. 2, 1876 to Conway].

Sam wrote a short note “To Whom It May Concern” introducing his mother, Jane Clemens, and his sister Pamela Moffett, who would be traveling [MTLE 1: 67].

June 9 Saturday –William Dean Howells, on vacation in Conanicut, R.I., and “in a white fog that carries desolation to the soul,” wrote to ask Clemens for parts one and three of “Some Rambling Notes,” to put in type “at once.”

“The wretch who sold you that type-writer has not yet come to a cruel death. In the meantime he offers me $20.00 for it. I never could regard it as more than a loan, so I ask you whether I shall sell it at that price, or pass it along to you at Elmira” [MTHL 1: 181-2].

March 1 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote a short note to Elisha Bliss that he’d “put off the Mississippi River trip till June” and that he’d write a new book in the meantime. He also sent a “private commendation” on the Gilded Age play to Bliss, noting that John T. Raymond was “stirring up a new sort of comment upon the novel” [MTL 6: 395]. Raymond’s portrayal did not fully satisfy Sam.

March 1 Thursday – In New York, Bret Harte wrote a long argument to Sam, asserting his position with respect to Bliss and the American Publishing Co., Sam’s letter and the sending of Parsloe to San Francisco to study the Chinese character (which Harte called “simply preposterous”); and Sam’s offer of $25 per week to write another play with him—obviously an offer which Harte found insulting. The break between the two men was now final.

March 1 Friday – Sayles, Dick & Fitzgerald’s Publishing House wrote to Sam, agreeing to take his “Speech on Women” out of the book in which it appeared. They thanked him for his conditional permission to use “Membranous Croup” [MTP].

March 10 Friday – T.J. Mackay wrote from Boston to Sam. He was a stranger asking where he might find more of Twain’s stories, having given a public reading of “The Beef Contract” [MTP].

March 10 Saturday – Sam and Howells “…perplexed ourselves all day…over plots & counter plots, & dreamed over them all night. Unsatisfactory” [MTLE 2: 36].