January 28 Friday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Elisha Bliss, happy with the $4,000 due him for his latest royalties from Innocents Abroad.
“But $4,000 is pretty gorgeous. One don’t pick that up often, with a book. It is the next best thing to lecturing….I’ll back you against any publisher in America, Bliss—or elsewhere” [MTL 4: 40-1].
To date, Sam had totaled royalties of about $7,404 [MTL 4: 42n5].
January 28 Saturday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Willard McKinstry (1815-1899), publisher and editor of the Fredonia Censor since 1842, declining to attend a dinner at the Censor’s 50th anniversary.
January 29 Saturday – Sam’s article, “Around the World Letter No. 8,” subtitled, “Dining with a Cannibal,” was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 144].
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 3 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Joseph Twichell, praising Charles Dudley Warner’s new book, My Summer in a Garden [MTL 4: 294].
He also wrote to Elisha Bliss about the proposed pamphlet, the sketchbook and Roughing It, which Sam planned to be out by August. It wasn’t published until Feb. 1872 [MTL 4: 295].
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 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.
January 4 Tuesday – Sam and Livy traveled thirty miles east of Elmira where Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Wilson Hall, Owego, New York. They returned to Elmira that evening [MTL 4: 5n2].
January 4 Wednesday – Elisha Bliss wrote to Sam:
Have not heard from you for some time—am anxious for your safety—let us know how you are. &c—& how goes the latter. Have looked for advt. of your pamphlet also. Your brother & myself have expected to see it advertised. What is the trouble? Did you get my contracts sent? / Our paper gets on now just perfectly, & will be out by & by, in good shape I think [MTP].
January 5 Wednesday – Sam left at 8 PM and traveled overnight by train from Elmira to New York City [MTL 4: 2n1, 3].
January 5-6 Thursday – Clemens wrote a sketch unpublished until 2009: “Interviewing the Interviewer” [Who Is Mark Twain? xxiv].
January 6 Thursday – Sam wrote at 9 AM from Dan Slote’s in New York to Livy.
“The Amenia train has been changed to 3.30 instead of 4, PM., & so it is just right. I can arrive there at 7.21, whoop my lecture & clear out again.”
He’d been reading Robinson Crusoe and kept losing the book. “It is just like me. I must have a nurse” [MTL 4: 1].
January 6? Friday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to John M.
January 7 Friday – In the wee hours after midnight, Sam wrote from Amenia, New York to Mary Mason Fairbanks.
January 7 Saturday – Clemens was elected to membership in the elite Buffalo Club. He resigned his membership two months after leaving Buffalo [Reigstad 187-188]. Note: William G. Fargo was president of the club.
In “The Literature of the United States in 1870,” the Athenæum, p.15, briefly mentioned IA, but gave higher plaudits to Bret Harte for The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Sketches [Tenney 3-4].
January 8 Saturday – At midnight in the Troy House, Troy, New York, Sam wrote to Livy. He wrote her a second letter later in the day. His second letter marveled at the insignificance of the earth in the universe and of man. “Does one apple in a vast orchard think as much of itself as we do?” Sam was reading “The Early History of Man” in Eclectic Magazine for Jan. 1870 [MTL 4: 12].
Sam also wrote his agent, James Redpath, of “one-horse” towns, bills, and the like.
January 9 Monday – John M. Hay wrote from the Astor House in NYC to Sam; the letter was sent with another of Jan. 14.
“My Dear Mr Clemens / I owe you many thanks for your kind letter. I think the pilot is a much more appropriate and picturesque personage and should certainly have used him except for the fact that I knew Jim Bludso and he was an engineer and did just what I said…” [MTL 4: 299]. Note: see the rest of the letter in source.
July 10? Sunday – Sam wrote from Elmira asking his lecture agent, James Redpath, to “puff” Thomas Fitch, Congressman from Nevada. Sam saw Fitch on July 6 in Washington and encouraged him to lecture. Redpath used such testimonials in his lecture tour literature. Sam then dropped Fitch a note about the testimonial.
July 15 Friday – Elisha P. Bliss had arrived in Elmira and signed a contract with Sam for a book of Sam’s Western adventures to be completed by Jan. 1, 1871. Sales on Innocents were booming and Bliss wanted to tie Sam up for future books.
July 16 Saturday – A brief biography of Sam ran in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper [The Twainian, Feb. 1940, p.7]. Budd calls this “The first biographical sketch meant to be serious” [Our MT 45].
July 17 Sunday – George W. Cable (1844-1925), in his regular column in The New Orleans Picayune, compared Mark Twain and Josh Billings. At this time Cable felt Sam may have “the superior weight of mind,” but was more drawn to Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) [Tenney 3].
July 18 Monday – In Elmira, Sam wrote to Elisha Bliss about details of the new book and the dinner for the 75,000-sale mark of Innocents [MTL 4: 172-3]. Sam also wrote his partner on the Express, Josephus Larned, that Jervis Langdon’s condition had improved and that they now held hope for recovery [MTL 4: 173].
July – In the Galaxy for this month—MARK TWAIN’S MEMORANDA – Included:
“How I Edited an Agricultural Paper Once”
“The ‘Tournament’ in A.D. 1870”
“Enigma”
“Unburlesquable Things”
“The Late Benjamin Franklin”
“The Editorial Office Bore”
“Johnny Greer”
“A Daring Attempt at a Solution of It”
“To Correspondents” [Schmidt].
July 2 Saturday – Sam’s article, “How I Edited an Agricultural Paper Once,” which had appeared in the July Galaxy, was reprinted in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 217].
July 22 Friday – Sam wrote from Elmira to C.A. King, declining to give a speech or lecture [MTL 4: 174].
July 25 Monday – Sam telegraphed Josephus Larned, again saying that Jervis Langdon continued to improve [MTL 4: 174]. Sam’s article, “THE EUROPEAN WAR,” which was a spoof of journalistic exuberance, was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 222].