1883 – Sometime during the year Sam inscribed Historical View of the Literature of the South of Europe by Sismondi (1881) to Livy L. Clemens / from SLC / Hartford 1883 [MTP]. Sam inscribed in a Rollo Book for Jean “Little-girl-left-the-gate-open-book” Jean 1883-4 [MTP]. Sam sent a copy of Punch, Brothers, Punch! And other Sketches (1878) with ALS to James R. Osgood asking for “50 or 100 heliotypes like those of the Howell children” [MTP].
Home at Hartford: Day By Day
Chasing after Stage Plays – Cable & Mumps – Lobbying for International Copyright Canvassing
Huck – Duncan’s Lawsuit – April Fools! – Poor Doc Taft
Tuscaloosa Pirates – Rah for Cleveland!
Twins of Genius Hit the Road – The Children’s P&P Play
1884 – An interesting inscription by Sam made sometime during the year, place unknown:
“Some people can smoke to excess. Let them beware. There are others who cannot smoke to excess because there isn’t time enough in a day which contains 24 hours” [MTP].
Sanctimonious Cheapskate – Huck Finn Took Off – 1,000 Investment Opportunities
Grant’s Memoirs – Path Worn to N.Y. – Banned in Concord – Black Bunting
Fantastic Sales & Royalties – Why Not the Pope? – Paige Quicksand
Sam Honored at 50 – Susy Starts a Biography
Browning Reader – Too Many Books to Publish – Webster’s Neuralgia is a Pain - English as She is Taught – Soul & Entrails – Beecher Advance, Beecher Dead - Embezzler Nabbed – Question the Queen – Another Troublesome Dinner
1887 – Sometime early in the year, Sam agreed to take charge of a Wednesday Browning
reading circle, made up mostly of ladies. They would meet every week in Sam’s billiard room.
(See Mar. 22 to Fairbanks.) Paine writes:
More Publishing Struggles – Library of Humor – Blizzar - “Don’t Wear your Arctics in the White House”– Congressional Hear - Theo’s Stroke – Grace King – Webster Bought out for $
1888 – Sometime during this year an old fellow-printer from the spring of 1853 in St. Louis, Anthony Kennedy, wrote to Sam with some sort of invitation that Sam felt would “get me in trouble with No. 6” — a reference to a Webster & Co. Contract. Sam declined, and told Kennedy:
Litigating P&P Drama – Slowly Strangled by Paige – Readings for Charity - Copyright Cause – Howells’ Tragedy – Chang Riley & Eng Nye – Theo Crane Dies Baseball - Dinner – “Not a man, but a hog” – “No stoppage upon any pretext” - Pinkeyed Censor – Stedman & Beard – Elsie Leslie – Connecticut Yankee Published
Yankee Inspires Praise and Invective – Legal Tangles and Slippers for Elsie Leslie - House Wins Lawsuit – Livy’s Eyes are Bad – Goodman Stumps for Typesetter - Summer in Onteora – Susy Enters Bryn Mawr – Jane Clemens Dies - Jean’s Mystery Illness – Olivia Lewis Langdon Dies – Frauds & Liars!
[There is a list of publications preceding 1891 in the on-line site for DBD. No explanation for this list is given:
December 1 Monday – From Park & Tilford, New York, a long list of grocery items $136.01 tot, incl 2 dz Glen Whisky for $28 total [MTP].
William A. Seaver wrote from Mt. Vernon, NY to Sam.
Noble young Man:— / A young friend called at my house last evening, just as the bells were gonging for church, and asked me, in a perfectly serious manner, if you were the author of
“Jim Dobbs and the Tom Cats.”
December 1 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Chatto & Windus, thanking them for checks amounting to $6,000 for sales of A Tramp Abroad. Sam wrote that he was surprised by the “largeness of sale in the United States,” which he said brought the total to $50,000 he would get out of the book for twelve-months sales, from Mar. 1, 1880 [MTLE 5: 218].
Bills/receipts/statements from Hartford merchants:
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 1 Saturday ca. – About this day, Sam also wrote to the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund, a group raising money for the base of the Statue of Liberty [MTP]. The letter ran in the Dec. 3 edition of the New York Times (see Dec. 3 entry).
December 1 Monday – The Clemens family drove north a few hours to Simsbury, Conn., where Cable resided. Sam and Cable may have caught a conveyance there to Adams, Mass., on the western side of the state.
December 1 Tuesday – Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, Vol. 1 was officially published [MTNJ 3: 210n81]. Note: Powers [504] and Perry [233] each give the publication date as Dec. 10. However, the Library of America edition of Grant’s Memoirs gives these statistics: “The first volume was published December 1, 1885, in five bindings: cloth at $7.00 a set; sheep, $9.00; half-morocco, $11.00; full-morocco, $18.00; and tree calf, $25.00.”
December 1 Wednesday – Charles E. Lewis wrote from Washington, D.C. asking if HF had been dramatized and if was open to negotiating for such a play for a Miss Annie Lewis, an actress who made “a specialty of boys parts.” Miss Lewis was now in an Irish comedy [MTP].
S.C. and L.M. Gould of Notes and Queries with Answers magazine wrote to Sam asking for $1 due and an additional $1 should Sam wish to re-subscribe [MTP].
December 1 Thursday – From Sam’s notebook, another co. bank balance: 16,196.78 [MTNJ 3: 357].
Charles J. Devlin wrote to Sam on Spring Valley Coal, Ill. letterhead thanking Sam for books [MTP].
Check # Payee Amount [Notes]
3913 Patrick McAleer 50.00
3914 John O’Neil 60.00
December 1 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Augustin Daly that the family had company coming Tuesday (Dec. 4) and there was “sickness already in the house” and so regretted being unable to attend the first of “the subscription nights” performance, which implies Sam had purchased or was given seats to several dramas at Daly’s theater for the season.
I write you in order that you may not leave our seats empty & looking like lost teeth in a handsome jaw [MTP].
December 1 Sunday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Daniel Whitford, letter not extant but referred to in Whitford’s Dec. 2 to Sam [MTP].
December 1 Monday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam: “Cyclopedia of Religious Knowledge received. Thanks” [MTP].
Wm. B. Smith & Son, Flour, Grain, Feed, Baled and Loose Hay and Straw, Hartford, billed $48.61 for purchases Nov 8, 24, 25 for wheat, bran, provender oats, straw; Paid Dec. 5.
Neil Stalker, Fine Road and Track Harness, Horse Clothing, etc. billed $15.45 for items Sep 12, 19, Oct 1, 18, 31, Nov 14, 15, 21: chamois, sponges, lines, halter repair, collar rep. Castile soap, slipper & strap repair; Paid same day [MTP].
December 10 Wednesday – Sam wrote a short note to Howells, asking to:
“…place this cuss’s name & address alongside Chatto’s, & order ‘simultane’ sheets to be sent to him & Chatto at the same time—when there are any?” Sam wanted to keep his word “for the novelty of it” [MTLE 4: 178].
December 10 Friday – Sam’s sketch, “For Struggling Young Poets,” dated Nov. 17, 1880 ran in the Dec. 10 issue of the Buffalo Bazaar Bulletin [MTLE 5: 198-200]. It was reprinted in the Buffalo Express on Dec. 11 and in the Hartford Courant in an article titled, “Mark Twain’s Poem” on Dec. 13, p2. Excerpt:
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 10 Monday – Chatto & Windus wrote thanking him for Osgood’s memorandum on LM. Much of the letter is smeared and illegible [MTP].
December 10 Wednesday – The Dawson Brothers in Canada and Chatto & Windus in London published Adventures of Huckleberry Finn [Powers, MT A Life 489; Roberts 22].
December 10 Thursday – Karl Gerhardt wrote more about the death mask matter, Grant to Gerhardt Dec. 7 enclosed [MTP].
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