Vol 3 Section 0673

Our representative is having some little trouble in some cases as parties who would purchase only too gladly, not knowing of our right to the ownership, refuse to purchase without some note or letter from you, showing that we have the authority.

If you will furnish us with a line to this effect, we will very much appreciate it [MTP]. Note: Sam’s answer see ca. Jan. 15. Shipman Brothers was dramatizing PW.

Sam’s notebook: “Longfellow (?)” [NB 45 TS 2].

January 15 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “G.H. Crosby, 11 a m / Go to Mr. Rogers, dinner” [NB 42 TS 2].

Note: This is likely E.H. Crosby, not G.H., (Ernest Howard Crosby) active in the Anti-Imperialist League.

Samuel Lloyd Osbourne (1868-1947) wrote to Sam.

Lambs Club / New York City / Dear Mr. Clemens,

I am sending you herewith the two forlorn hopes of which I told you. “Down Below the Forties” was refused, each time on the score of impropriety, by the Smart Set and Ainslee’s Magazine. The Co-Respondent (you can change the name if required) was refused by Scribner’s, the Smart Set and Town Topics. You will find that there is good stuff in both the stories. I shall be very happy to get them printed even if I made very little money by them. I am sending at once for a copy of my “Renegade”. It is without question the most daring, the most successful (artistically speaking) and the most powerful of anything I have ever attempted. I have broached the idea to A P Watt. I shall send you the Renegade on its arrival. Pardon my wretched typing, and believe me very sincerely yours [MTP].

Note: “Osbourne was the son-in-law of Robert Louis Stevenson who married Fanny Osbourne in 1880. On a rainy day in 1881, Stevenson entertained the boy by drawing and coloring the map of an island; this exercise proved the inspiration for the Stevenson’s beloved Treasure Island. Lloyd Osbourne accompanied his mother and stepfather to Samoa, co-wrote three books with Stevenson (The Ebb-Tide, The Wrecker, The Wrong Box). After Stevenson’s death in 1894, Osbourne served as US Vice Consul in Samoa (appointed 1897). Osbourne was himself an author of several books, (including Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas, 1921), though he failed to achieve the literary prominence of his stepfather” [historyforsale website, item 3524 accessed Sept. 13, 2009].

January 15 ca. – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam replied per unknown hand to Ernest Shipman’s Jan 14.

“Mr. Clemens instructs me to say that the lithograph portrait of his is your property, to be used to any legitimate & reputable way, by sale or gift, & that you need no authorization from him, to so use it” [MTP].

January 16 Thursday – Fatout lists a “talk or reading” for Sam at the Civic Club in Riverdale for this date [MT Speaking 669]. Note: though no particulars are given, a listing in Sam’s NB for 8.15 names the Club [NB 45 TS 2].

January 17 Friday – Sam’s notebook: “Engaged at home” [NB 45 TS 2].

January 18 Saturday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Daniel Carter Beard.

I cannot tell you how much I like the pictures; I think you have not made better nor bitterer ones, nor any that were redder with the bloody truth. As to the book, I cannot make an estimate, for I was not able to steal time for a careful & searching examination, uninterrupted, of even a single chapter, and necessarily I would not permit myself to have an opinion without that.

I leave, Monday, for a week in interior New York—not rest, but to get seclusion from mails, newspapers, visits, & the other devourers of a harassed man’s time, so that I can in tranquility concentrate the whirling rags of my mind & get a safe & sure start upon a long, long satire in the which my heart is engaged, & on

SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.