December 14 Monday – William Ireland Starr, photographer from West Redding, Conn. came and took photographs of Stormfield and it’s occupants, including one of Ralph W.
The Man in the White Suit: Day By Day
December 15 Tuesday – Clara Apfel, who was about to prepare a paper for the Chicago Women’s Club wrote to ask “something new”—“Possibly what you personally think of ‘Women’s’ clubs” or some little incident” in his life [MTP]. Note: “Ans Dec 23 MLH”
December 16 Wednesday – William Dean Howells wrote to Sam.
Dear Clemens:
December 17 Thursday – In Redding, Conn. Sam sent a telegram to daughter Jean in Berlin, Germany.
[typed on form of Western Union Telegraph Company:]
December 18 Friday – In N.Y.C. H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam.
December 19 Saturday – In Redding, Conn. Sam replied to the Dec. 18 from H.H. Rogers.
Dear Admiral:
December 20 Sunday – In Redding, Conn. Sam began a letter to Margaret Blackmer that he finished on Dec. 21. The Dec. 20 segment:
December 21 Monday – In Redding, Conn. Sam added to his Dec. 20 to Margaret Blackmer.
Next morning. 8 a.m. Before breakfast.
December 22 Tuesday – Mansfield Hobbs, an attorney friend of Ralph W. Ashcroft filed incorporation papers for the Mark Twain Company, with $5,000 in capital stock. Clemens, Ashcroft, and Isabel Lyon were the original officers. Sam signed a document assigning and transferring all of his literary rights to the new corporation.
December 23 Wednesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam replied to the Dec. 10 of L.M. Powers. “Published without my consent; & promptly suppressed. SLC /Don’t know where to find this one. It was a political brochure” [MTP].
December 24 Thursday – In Redding, Conn. Sam inscribed a copy of P&P to Ossip Gabrilowitsch: “To Ossip Gabrilowitsch, all good wishes & a Merry Christmas, from the Author. Stormfield, Dec. 24/08” [MTP].
December 25 Friday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Dorothy Butes.
December 26 Saturday – In Redding, Conn. Sam sent the same postcard with a photo of himself, Ashcroft, and Lyon to Dorothy Sturgis, this time adding supposed dialog between those photographed:
December 27 Sunday – Sam’s new guestbook:
Name Address Date Remarks
December 28 Monday – In Redding, Sam wrote a postcard to Ragnvald Blix in Munich, Germany.
December 29 Tuesday – Sam wrote in the new Guestbook before transferring names and information from the old guestbook:
STORMFIELD GUESTBOOK
December 30 Wednesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Elizabeth Alexander Alexander (Mrs. John White Alexander).
December 31 Thursday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Gertrude Natkin in N.Y.C.
January –Samuel Wyatt wrote from Berks, England to offer three pages of verse after reading JA [MTP].
January 1 Friday – In Redding, Conn., Isabel V. Lyon replied for Sam to the Dec. 28, 1908 from Clara Frazer in Withers Mill, Mo.
Dear Miss Frazer: / Mr. Clemens asks me to write for him & say certainly you may have that photograph copyrighted, & then used on post cards.
It is such a pretty little photograph that when the cards are printed, Mr Clemens hopes to have some of them.
January 2 Saturday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote a postcard to daughter Jean. “Happy New Year, Jean dear! And I hope you will have many more. / Affectionately” … [MTP].
Sam also wrote a postcard with a photograph of Stormfield to Dorothy Quick. Happy New Year! Jan. 2’09
It is a very nice poem, Dorothy dear; that is my opinion, & Miss Lyon’s, too.
January 3 Sunday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Margaret Blackmer at the Misses Tewksbury’s School, Washington-on-Hudson, N.Y.
January 4 Monday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to the Telephone Operators.
To the Young Ladies of the Telephone Office:
I have received your kind & welcome notes, & I thank you for them, & wish you a happy New year, with many & many others to follow.
Your obliged & appreciative friend Mark Twain [MTP]. Note: Sam sent each operator a box of candy.
Sam also wrote on The Educational Theatre for Children letterhead, to an unidentified man.
January 5 Tuesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote a three-paragraph letter (again on the Children’s Theatre letterhead) to an unidentified person, inviting to a course of lectures at the Lyceum Theatre [MTP: Cordelia and Tom Platt catalogs, Nov. 1993, Item 1F]. Note: like the Jan. 4 letter this and likely several others were sent out to promote “the dramatic instinct in education.”
January 6 Wednesday – Anna L. Cunningham wrote to thank Sam for the box of chocolates [MTP]. Note: “Telephone girl”