May 4 Saturday – At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C., Sam wrote to George B. Harvey. Clemens wanted to include his story “The Death Wafer” to the next volume by Bliss for his collected works. This was “a short story which I think a great deal of, and which I wish to print in the Xmas Harper.” Would it be acceptable for Bliss to print and bind the new volume between now and Christmas, “provided he did not issue a copy before the Xmas Harper was out?” [MTP].

Note: on Dec. 21, 1899 to Harrison, Sam wrote he’d just finished “The Death Disk,” later named “The Death Wafer,” which first ran in the Dec. issue of Harper’s, 1901. In 1883 Sam wrote a reaction in his notebook to Thomas Carlyle’s Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches; on Dec. 20, 1883 he wrote to William Dean Howells about the incident he’d read again in his notebook and a possible closing scene he’d written for it; he encouraged Howells, “let’s do a tragedy, & do it well” [MTNJ 3: 14 & n24]. Wilson writes: “Almost immediately Mark Twain adapted the story to dramatic form and presented it at Carnegie Hall in early winter [Feb. 8] 1902 (Paine 1194). The story was published in Germany in the A Double-Barrelled Detective Story volume (Tauchnitz: 1902), then in the United States the following year in My Debut as a Literary Person” [41]. On Aug. 30, 1906 in an autobiographical dictation, Sam related the twelve-year struggle it took to get this story right:

In the course of twelve years I made six attempts to tell a simple little story which I knew would tell itself in four hours if I could ever find the right starting point. I scored six failures; then one day in London [Oct. 1899] I offered the text of the story to Robert McClure and proposed that he publish that text in the magazine and offer a prize to the person who should tell it best. I became greatly interested and went on talking upon the text for half an hour; then he said, “You have told the story yourself. You have nothing to do but put it on paper just as you have told it.”

I recognized that this was true. At the end of four hours it was finished, and quite to my satisfaction. So it took twelve years and four hours to produce that little bit of a story, which I have called “The Death Wafer” [MTE 199-200]. See also Wilson p.41-4.

George B. Harvey replied to Sam’s request of this date (above): “No objections. Have been mighty busy since I got back but am going to get in to see you some day this week” [MTP].

Sam also wrote a post card to Dr. Elizabeth Jarrett: “Come down and see me” [eBay Mar. 16, 2006, Item 6612597385]. Note: Sam was responding to an invitation (not extant) to address the Alumnae of Normal College (ladies school, later Hunter College); Jarrett was the president of the group.

Check # Payee Amount [Notes]

188 Guaranty Trust 5000.00