• January 15, 1871 Sunday

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    January 15 Sunday  Sam wrote from Buffalo to the Editor of Every Saturday, Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907), setting him straight that the poem “Three Aces” run in the Express Dec. 3, 1870 over the byline “Carl Byng was not Twain’s. Aldrich complained in the Jan.

  • January 18, 1871 Wednesday

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    January 18 Wednesday – Isaac E. Sheldon wrote to Sam: “Yours of the 15th just at hand / We will get out the book just as soon as possible. The stereotypers have delayed us.” He included more publishing details for A Burlesque Autobiography [MTP].

  • January 21, 1871 Saturday

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    January 21 Saturday – Isaac E. Sheldon wrote to Sam: “Why do you not return the proof sent to you some days since? I fear that it may not have reached you” [MTP].

    C.F. Sterling wrote from Birmingham, Conn. to Sam.

  • January 22, 1871 Sunday 

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    January 22 Sunday – Sam wrote from Buffalo, again to Thomas Bailey Aldrich, asking that he not print the paragraph sent on Jan. 15. Aldrich replied on Jan. 25 that it was too late; that the note and his apology had been printed on 42,000 copies of the next edition [MTL 4: 305].

  • January 25, 1871 Wednesday

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    January 25 Wednesday  Livy and Sam (mostly Livy) wrote to Alice Hooker Day from a Buffalo hospital where Livy took Langdon for a wet nurse. Sam added an apology for an “absurdly curt dispatch” he had sent, probably canceling Isabella Beecher Hooker’s visit [MTL 4: 313-4]. Haughty Isabella was not one of Sam’s favorites.

  • January 26, 1871 Thursday 

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    January 26 Thursday  Sam wrote from Buffalo to Mary Mason Fairbanks.

    “Remembering the hatchet, I am your own moral son, which cannot tell a lie, when a body is looking straight at him…make the bride & groom be sure to stop…” —that is, Alice and William Gaylord on their honeymoon [MTL 4: 314].

  • January 27, 1871 Friday 

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    January 27 Friday  Sam wrote from Buffalo to Thomas Bailey Aldrich concerning the Bret Harte plagiarism claim and Sam’s subsequent denial that the Carl Byng verses were his.

    “No, indeed, don’t take back the apology! Hang it, I don’t want to abuse a man’s civility merely because he gives me the chance.”

    Sam also gave credit to Harte for changing him:

  • January 29, 1871 Sunday

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    January 29 Sunday  Sam’s article, “The Danger of Lying in Bed,” which also appeared in the Feb. 1871 issue of the Galaxy, was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 281]. This was the last known article Sam published in the Buffalo Express.

  • January 30, 1871 Monday

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    January 30 Monday  Sam wrote from Buffalo to James Redpath. Sam asked if his article on Rev. William Sabine in the Feb. issue of Galaxy (“The Indignity Put Upon the Remains of George Holland by the Rev. Mr. Sabine”) would bring damage.

  • January 31, 1871 Tuesday

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    January 31 Tuesday  Sam left Buffalo for Washington, D.C. via New York City. He telegraphed Elisha Bliss: “Have an appointment at Grand Hotel eleven tomorrow can you be there at noon.” Sam’s earlier appointment was with Isaac E. Sheldon or Francis P. Church of the Galaxy.

  • February 1871

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    February  In the Galaxy for this month – MARK TWAIN’S MEMORANDA  Included:

    “The Coming Man”
    “A Book Review”
    “The Tone-Imparting Committee”
    “The Danger of Lying in Bed”
    “One of Mankind’s Bores”
    “A Falsehood”
    “The Indignity Put Upon the Remains of George Holland by the Rev. Mr. Sabine” [Schmidt].

  • February 2, 1871 Thursday

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    February 2 Thursday  Sam arrived in Washington, D.C. and registered at the Ebbitt House, where his partner Josephus Larned was staying. Sam had returned to the capitol on the unfinished business of the legislation for Tennessee. As one of the executors to Jervis Langdon’s estate, Sam wanted to get the bill passed that had failed in July 1870.

  • February 4, 1871 Saturday

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    February 4 Saturday – Henry W. Sage wrote to Sam seeking a meeting to clear up a misunderstanding with George H. Selkirk and Josephus N. Larned about an interview interrupted [MTP]. NoteHenry W. Sage (1814-1897), father of Dean Sage, mentioned in Sam’s Autobiography as the head of H.W. Sage & Co., which ran a lumber mill on Saginaw Bay.

  • February 6, 1871 Monday 

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    February 6 Monday – Sam telegraphed his plans home and Susan Crane answered by telegram. Then Susan Crane wrote Sam in Washington that Livy was worse—fever, no appetite, unable to sleep. Still, it was not yet urgent [MTL 4: 327].

  • February 7, 1871 Tuesday

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    February 7 Tuesday – In Washington, Sam went to Mathew Brady’s studio and was photographed with David Gray, also staying at the Ebbitt House; and George Alfred Townsend aka “Gath” (1841-1914), another Washington correspondent. (See one of the photos in Muller, p.151; another in Meltzer, p.126.) That evening, while at a dinner at Welcker’s Restaurant Ohio congressman&nbsp

  • February 9, 1871 Thursday 

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    February 9 Thursday  Sam wrote from Buffalo to Louis Prang and Co. acknowledging receipt of a chromolithograph. Sam added:

    “This is all in haste. I am simply out of the sick room for a moment’s rest & respite. My wife is seriously & I am afraid even dangerously ill” [MTL 4: 329].

    Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote:

  • February 10, 1871 Friday

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    February 10 Friday – Francis P. Church wrote to Sam: “I have your last telegram, but I have already written that I succeeded in stopping Memoranda. / It will delay the Galaxy several days, but I keenly appreciate your feelings & honor you for it. I hope I should feel so myself under similar circumstances” [MTPO].

    Isaac E. Sheldon wrote concerning Sam’s wish to delay the publication of Burlesque Autobiography:

  • February 11, 1871 Saturday

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    February 11 SaturdayIsaac E. Sheldon wrote to Sam: “Your telegram just rec’d. / I write to you this morning. /A note is inserted in the Nebulae & also in Table of Contents giving the reason why your Memoranda is not in this time” [MTP]. Note: Clemens may have sent another telegram on Feb. 10 or 11.

  • February 13, 1871 Monday

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    February 13 Monday  To an unidentified request to lecture, Sam added a P.S. to a preprinted form:

    “Am sorry to say that I am clear out of the lecture field, & neither riches nor glory can tempt me!” [MTL 4: 330].

    Frank Bliss wrote an accounting of sales of IA during the period ending Jan. 31, including 6,395 in cloth, 1,353 in gift sets, 271 in half Morocco, enclosing check for $1,452.62 [MTP].