Clemens admitted in December 1870 that when he published the Jumping Frog book in 1867, he “fully expected” it to “sell 50,000 copies & it only sold 4,000,” the latter being an accurate approximation of its actual sale in the United States by that time (SLC to Francis S. Drake, 26 Dec 70click to open link, NN-B; ET&S2 , 544–46). Mark Twain was unaware until the spring or summer of 1868 that George Routledge and Sons had reprinted the volume in England, where it was not protected by British or American copyright law. By 1870 the book had also been reprinted in England by John Camden Hotten, and by the time of Hotten’s death in 1873, these two publishers had printed some 43,000 copies of it (ET&S2 , 547–48). Mark Twain’s Sandwich Islands manuscript, on the other hand, seems not to have interested Dick and Fitzgerald—or any other publisher. On 15 June the American Literary Gazette and Publishers’ Circular noted, “The Trade is reported quiet at present; some publishers intimating that they will now wait until fall before putting out any new books” (“Notes on Books and Booksellers,” 9 15 June 67: 100). The book was never published, and the manuscript is not known to survive.

Zebulon Leavenworth (1830–77), still an active pilot, and his brother John M. Leavenworth (b. 1835 or 1836), formerly a clerk in a wholesale grocery firm but now a steamboat captain, were both old friends of Clemens’s whom he had doubtless seen most recently in St. Louis where, on 27 March, his application for reinstatement in the Masons’ Polar Star Lodge No. 79 was formally submitted, endorsed by “Brothers Leavenworth and W. P. Curtis” (L1 , 107 n. 2; St. Louis Census 1860, 180; Edwards 1867, 511; Denslow, 57). For Essie Pepper and Lou Conrad, see 15 Apr 67 to JLC and family, n. 6click to open link.

Unidentified.

Ann J. Slote (b. 1801 or 1802), widow of Daniel Slote, Sr., lived with her son and his sisters—Josephine, aged about twenty-nine, and Ann, aged about twenty-six—at 44 East Twenty-sixth Street, just north of Madison Square (Wilson 1867, 957; New York Census 1860, 920–21).

Although Orion had been in St. Louis or Keokuk, or both, during Clemens’s visit, he spent most of his time in 1867 attending to the family property in Tennessee. From October 1866 until nearly the end of April 1867, he contributed nine letters to the San Francisco Times, for which he was presumably paid, but probably very little. When in St. Louis, he boarded (for an unknown but probably minimal fee) with his sister and mother, listing himself in the city directory as a lawyer and taking whatever work he could find. On 9 May, for instance, Orion reported to Mollie (still living with her parents in Keokuk) that “Ludington paid me twenty dollars yesterday for legal services. I send you five. I paid Pamela five on account” (OC 1866, OC 1866, OC 1867, OC 1867, OC 1867, OC 1867, OC 1867, OC 1867, OC 1867; Edwards 1867, 257; OC to MEC, 9 May 67, CU-MARK). But evidently he was also hoping for employment as a correspondent with a New York periodical. On 25 May Pamela reported to Orion:

Orion’s last two letters to the San Francisco Times (the “California paper” Pamela mentioned) were published on 22 and 23 May, and had therefore not yet reached St. Louis. His letter to Street and Smith’s New York Weekly (presumably the journal Pamela referred to) has not been found, and Orion seems not to have pursued the matter, at least not successfully. William M. Stewart (1827–1909), Republican senator from Nevada (1864–75 and 1887–1905), had been first among equals in signing the “call” for Clemens to lecture in New York. At the time of this letter, Stewart had just sent (or was about to send) Clemens himself an offer of a post as his private secretary (Effie Mona Mack, 55).

Frank Fuller did, however, collect “a lot of notices” of Clemens’s New York lecture debut, giving them to Clemens in November 1868 (28 Nov 68 to OLLclick to open link).