October 7 Saturday – Alexander & Green advised the court had granted a preliminary injunction against J.S. Ogilvie & Co., The New York News Co. Ogilvie’s defense was that he’d republished from newspaper clippings [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Trade-mark suit against Ogilvie & Co. They ‘holler.’ ”
Charles Webster wrote:
October 9 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his mother, Jane Clemens. He told the news that Livy and Clara Spaulding had “gone shopping to New York…for a few days.” Sam wrote how he’d sent Charles Webster to Fredonia “with a very savage article exposing that watch company,” and how they’d paid him on the spot not to publish it.
October 10 Tuesday – Milicent W. Shinn for Californian Magazine wrote to ask Sam for an article, though they didn’t pay contributors [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Begging letter”
October 11 Wednesday – John C. Kinney wrote from Hartford to invite Sam to the Oct. 14 event at Allyn Hall, “when the Governor’s Foot Guard will entertain the Worcester, Mass. Continentals” Of course, he wanted Clemens to speak, along with others [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Maj. Kinney”
October 12 Thursday – From Hartford, Sam typed a letter to George W. Cable, very satisfied with a portrait that had arrived, the artist one “Mrs. Cox” (Frances A. Cox). Sam told Cable to relate how “delighted we all are with her work.” Charles Warner and Joe Twichell were now home, so Sam hoped Cable could “come up as soon as” he could [MTP].
October 13 Friday – 18 yr old Edward W. Bok wrote from Brooklyn, this time seeking “a few words of opinion” about his autograph collection, which was the subject of enclosed clippings [MTP].
October 14 Saturday – Sam wrote to Worden & Co., letter not extant, referred to in Worden’s Oct. 16.
October 16 Monday – From Hartford, Sam typed a letter to George W. Cable. A date for Cable’s visit had evidently been set. The weather was beautiful; they’d seen a comet and Sam hoped to finish LM this week,
“FOR I HAVE ALREADY FINSHED WRITING ALL I DON’T KNOW ABOUT NEW ORLEANS” [MTP].
October 17 Tuesday – In Vaud, Switzerland, Howells wrote to Sam:
“What you want to do is pack up your family, and come to Florence for the winter….We are having a good, dull, wholesome time in this little pension on the shore of Lake Leman, within gunshot of the Castle of Chillon; but a thousand jokes rot in my breast every day for want of companionship” [MTHL 1: 415].
R.O. Dienwis wrote a postcard from Kings Ferry, Fla., with a non-sensical message [MTP].
October 18 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to James R. Osgood:
“I am sending Webster to talk with you. I would like him to take pretty full charge of the matter of running the book, if this will disadvantage you in no way.”
This is seen as Sam’s “first step in CLW’s eventual career as MT’s publisher” [MTLTP 158-9 & n1]. Also in the works was “A Handbook of Etiquette,” planned as a trade book (never published), and much later, “Mark Twain’s Cyclopedia of Humor."
October 19 Thursday – Sam gave a speech, titled “City of Hartford” for the Reception for Worcester Continentals at Allyn Hall, Hartford.
October 20 Friday – George Gebbie wrote from Phila to Sam wanting to “renew the discussion” about the “Library of Humor” book after not corresponding for a year [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Return no answer to this fraud.”
October 21 Saturday – In Hartford, Sam typed a response to his sister Pamela Moffett all about autographs and how he hated to give them out. He thought it a silly practice, save for those he knew. His sister had requested an autograph or a book for the Schroeters (Schroters), who had been business partners and neighbors to the Moffetts at the outbreak of the Civil War. It was the Schroeter house that Sam “hid out” in prior to running off to join the Marion Rangers.
October 23 Monday – In Hartford, Sam typed a letter to Hattie and Karl Gerhardt.
“I STARTED A LETTER OF CREDIT FOR A HUNDRED POUNDS TO PARIS ABOUT THREE DAYS AGO, AND INTENDED TO WRITE YOU AT THE SAME TIME; BUT HAVE BEEN DELAYED IN VARIOUS WAYS. IN FACT MY PRINCIPAL DELAY COMES OF THE UNFINISHED AND APPARENTLY UNFINISHABLE CONDITION OF MY BOOK” [MTP].
George W. Cable attended a Monday Evening Club with Sam [MTHL 1: 420n4].
October 24 Tuesday – Charles Webster acknowledged Sam’s check for $500, which was used to purchase a list of Western agents from H.N. Hinckley, who had been sent by Elisha Bliss to open a Chicago branch of Am. Publishing Co. The lists held about 500 agents who had sold Sam’s prior books, and another 7,000 persons who’d applied for agency to sell the books. Also included was Hinckley’s unsold supply of older books.
October 27 Friday – In Hartford Sam typed a note to Andrew Chatto asking for maps that they couldn’t find and that his governess wanted. Could they be shipped? [MTP]. The Clemens children’s governess since 1880 was Lilly Gillette Foote.
October 29 Sunday – Sam wrote to Robert D. Brain, letter not extant but referred to in Brain’s Oct. 30.
October 30 Monday – In Hartford Sam typed a one-liner to Charles Webster. “Dear Charlie, Give the man the papers he wants, or kill him, I don’t care which” [MTBus 204].
Orion Clemens wrote from Keokuk.
My Dear Brother: / The $150 came from Perkin’s to-day.
I moved into my office to-day. Been with Marshall some weeks. Didn’t have fires; caught cold; couldn’t study; they talked too much.
October 31 Tuesday – Karl Gerhardt wrote to Sam and Livy, excited about their new professor for sculpture, M. Falguera, “one of the strongest French sculptors of the day.” He enclosed a notice from “the Boston Advertiser regarding a proposed equestrian statue of Paul Revere”—didn’t Sam think it a good idea for him to enter the contest for the Revere statue? [MTP].
November 2 Thursday – Karl Gerhardt wrote to Sam and Livy having rec’d the new letter of credit for £100, and promised that “every cent will be used to the best advantage” [MTP].
November 4 Saturday – In Hartford Sam typed a note to Howells, who wrote Oct. 17 from Vaud, Switzerland. Howells tried to convince Sam to “pack up your family and come to Florence for the winter.” Sam responded:
Yes, it would be profitable for me to do that, because with your society to help me, I should swiftly finish this now interminable book. But I cannot come, because I am not boss here, and nothing but dynamite can move Mrs. Clemens away from home in the winter season.
November 5 Sunday – The New York Times, under “LITERARY NOTES” page 3:
—The announcement that a new work on American humor by Mark Twain and W.D. Howells is in the press is somewhat premature. No such book has as yet been written, and as Mr. Clemens has still in his possession two completed manuscripts, it is difficult to say when a still unwritten book is likely to appear.
Note: This may have been planted by Sam to discourage questions about what would become The Library of Humor.
November 6 Monday – James R. Osgood wrote to Sam wanting Webster to come to Boston and arrange all the details for LM publishing [MTP].
November 7 Tuesday – George W. Cable wrote from N. Orleans to Sam: “I’m not going to try to say anything—adequate. I am here to thank you and Mrs. Clemens for your delightful hospitality, but what shall I say. I kiss my hand. I kiss Mrs. Clemens hand. I get out my handkerchief. But all is ineffectual-insufficient. Embrace the dear little girls, Susie Clara & Jean for me. … / I sent the books to you a day or two ago, (On the 4th). Mrs. Cable had failed to find them all…” [MTP]. Note: Sam received the books Nov.
November 9 Thursday – Katie Hay wrote from St. Kilda West, Victoria to thank Sam for sending his autograph [MTP].