November 23 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells. A Tramp Abroad was:
“…really finished at last—every care is off my mind, everything is out of my way—so I have accepted the invitation to be at the Holmes breakfast” (Oliver Wendell Holmes’ 70th birthday celebration).
November 23 Tuesday – Sam drafted a humorous letter to the editor of the New York Evening Post. The letter, if sent, was not published. He wrote of his experience with obtaining a start from Shakespeare’s mulberry tree while in Stratford, England and planting it in Hartford. Sam had read of plans to plant mulberry “slips” (starts) in New York’s Central Park [MTLE 5: 204-6].
November 23 Wednesday – Tiffany & Co. wrote acknowledging the thousand dollars sent [MTP].
November 23 Thursday – Pamela Moffett wrote in a tiny hand on a tiny card from Oakland, Calif. where she had gone for her health and to see her son Samuel. She thanked Clemens for sending a signed book to the Schroeters, and talked about her son’s progress in farming there [MTP]. Note: also seen as “Schroter”.
November 23 Sunday – Sam and Cable left New York early on their way to Washington, D.C. [Turner, MT & GWC 60].
Sam mentioned in his Nov. 21 letter to Livy that he enjoyed letters from his daughters. He answered and wrote from New York to Clara Clemens (“Ben”).
November 23 Monday – While Sam was in New York on business he ran an errand for Livy’s friend, Fiedele Brooks (Mrs. Henry Brooks); he inquired about curtains from Candace Wheeler for Mrs. Brooks [MTNJ 3: 212n85]. Candace “at once telegraphed Mrs. Brooks to come & get the curtains & instructions” [Nov. 25 to Livy; MTP].
November 23 Tuesday – The Hartford Courant, p2 “Blackbird Again,” reported:
November 23 Wednesday –
Check # Payee Amount [Notes]
3911 James Quinn 20.00 RR Agent
November 23 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Orion, thanking him for hickory nuts sent and announcing he’d ordered the Library of American Literature sent to him and also Samuel Moffett as the Clemens family’s Christmas presents. Orion had failed to purchase a house he and Mollie had wanted, and Sam sent advice:
November 23 Saturday – Sam once allowed his name to be advertised with the Loisette memory system, but his short note to Franklin G. Whitmore, likely in response to an inquiry, said Sam had “changed his mind long ago” [MTP].
Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam confirming that copyright laws required that Clemens “be on Canadian soil the day the book is published in England, viz: December 6th” [MTNJ 3: 535n162]. See Dec. 6.
November 24 Monday – Sam sent a postcard from Hartford to James B. Pond, the lecture circuit manager of the Boston Literary Bureau, who evidently had asked if he would lecture for charity. Sam responded he was “busy head over heels, & it’s just a solid impossibility” [MTLE 4: 158].
November 24 Wednesday – Sam purchased a copy of Isa Craig Knox’s (1831-1903) The Little Folks’ History of England from Brown & Gross, Hartford booksellers. Saloman & DeLeeuw, Hartford dealers in tobacco, billed Sam $2.33 for “2 & 5/12 doz corn cob pipes & 1&1/2 Biker. Durham tob[acco]”; paid [MTP].
November 24 Thursday – Thanksgiving – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster. He didn’t doubt Charley’s energy or dedication, but did require continual reports on things, including the “daily prospects for brass” in order to keep up the English patent. Not long reports, Sam insisted, but ones to the point. If brass wouldn’t work, try copper.
November 24 Friday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam, all about the company he wanted to start dealing with electric lights [MTP].
November 24 Monday – Thomas Nast invited Sam to spend time with him since Sam and Cable were to lecture in Morristown, New Jersey on Thanksgiving eve.
“Or, if you cannot spend so much time here we can give you a substantial tea at six or seven. Do you require reinforcing after the lecture is over? That was always my hungry time” [MTP].
November 24 Tuesday – Sam read proofs early and made the rounds of newspaper offices, talking up the Paige typesetter. He called it a “wild day” in a letter to Livy the next day. He accompanied Charles A. Dana, editor of the New York Sun home…
November 24 Wednesday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam. Fanning sees Orion suffering from a “deliberate slight” at not being told that Sam was writing Connecticut Yankee. He quotes from the letter:
November 24 Thursday – Thanksgiving – According to Sam’s Nov. 16 to Fairbanks, Charles J. Langdon’s daughter, Julia Langdon, came up from her New York School for the holiday with the Clemens family.
In Hartford Sam wrote to Laurence Hutton.
November 24 Saturday – Augustin Daly wrote to Sam that he did not find a play in Grace King’s Monsieur Motte [Bush 45].
George W. Green for Am. Copyright League wrote to Sam announcing Sam had been “unanimously elected a member of the council” at their Nov. 12, 1888 meeting [MTP].
November 24 Sunday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Sylvester Baxter, having decided it unwise to release excerpts of CY in the US prior to publishing elsewhere:
It is a pity to have to relinquish my scheme, but it would imperil my English & Canadian copyright — & our copyright relations are much more strained now than they have ever been before. It was a mistake to publish portions of several chapters in the Century the other day, but I am discovering that fact late in the day.
November 24 Monday – Sam probably spent the day traveling back to Hartford.
Wilson Barrett sent Sam clippings from the Nov. 14, 1890 issue of The Lantern newspaper, St. Helens, England about various dramatics there starring Mr. Wilson Barrett and Miss Eastlake [MTP].
November 25 Tuesday – Sam wrote another postcard from Hartford to James Pond, saying he couldn’t take part in the “20 nights’ Entertainments,” but if he could spare the time he would “willingly do it for $7,000 a night” [MTLE 4: 159].
Sam’s letter of Nov. 22, “Mark Twain on the New Postal Barbarism” ran in the Hartford Courant [MTLE 4: 153; Camfield bibliog.].
November 25 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Elinor Howells, who evidently wrote that her husband was ill and confined to bed:
“Dear Mrs. Howells— / How you startle me! Can a man so near by, fall sick, & linger along, & approach death, & a body never hear of it?…I supposed Howells went to Toronto the 20th, & that he would fetch around & join Osgood & me in Montreal three or four days from now” [MTHL 1: 379].
November 25 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster. After referring angrily to and enclosing another bill from the plumber Ahern, Sam wrote about a land matter in Archer County, Texas. It seems Livy had loaned money to a woman, and the woman’s husband had let the taxes fall delinquent.
November 25 Tuesday – In the evening, Sam and Cable gave a second reading in Congregational Church, Washington, D.C. The Washington Post printed a very positive review of the previous night, and announced that President Grant would attend the reading this night.