The Man in the White Suit: Day By Day

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.

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 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 –Samuel Wyatt wrote from Berks, England to offer three pages of verse after reading JA [MTP].

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”