“Is Shakespeare Dead?”– Stormfield $1 Tax – Clara vs. Isabel
Lyon Breaks Down – Clara’s Affair – Carnegie Dinner – Ashcroft Weds Lyon
“Lobster Pot” Boils – H.H.’s Railway – Who Fired Horace? – Lyon Sacked
St. Timothy’s – Ashcroft-Lyon MS – H.H. Rogers Dies – Lost Footnote
Twain Sues Mrs. Ashcroft – “Tobacco” Heart – Amicable Settlement
 Ossip Weds Clara – Jean Comes Home – Bermuda with Paine
“Jean is a surprise & a wonder” – Jean dies: “I always envy the dead”

1909 – About this year Sam inscribed his photograph to Mrs. Dyer: “To Mrs. Dyer / Truly Yours,. Mark Twain” [MTP: Slotta]. Note: Slotta’s notes put the photo taken at “Stormfield,” and “dated within a year either way of 1909.”

In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to “His Excellency the Governor, & the Legislature.”

Sirs: We your petitioners, citizens, respectfully urge you to so amend the existing statute for the protection of the Christian Sunday as to either extend its safeguards, with even-handed justice, to the other Sabbaths, or withdraw them from the Christian Sabbath: this in accordance with the never-relinquished claim, now hallowed by three centuries of unchallenged acceptance & approval, that in our country religion is & ought to be free; & a condition which confesses that under our laws all statutory aid, support & favor granted to one religion must of right be either withdrawn or extended to the others. / Most respectfully

Dear Sir: I am sending this to every clergyman in Greater New York, in the hope that they will all be willing to sign the petition. / Mark Twain [MTP].

In a somewhat shaky hand, Sam inscribed a gift book from Col. A.G. Paine: The Navigator (1811), which contained directions for navigating various rivers, including the Mississippi [Donald Heald website Mar. 5, 2010].

Sometime in 1909 Irwin Wallace wrote to thank Clemens for his “word of praise” for Letters of a Japanese Schoolboy, which appeared serially in Collier’s starting in 1909. Wallace hoped a publisher would soon be putting the work out in book form [MTP].

Henry William Lucy included a section “Mark Twain” in his Sixty Years in the Wilderness:

Some Passages by the Way (London 1909). Tenney: “Reminiscences of MT at a dinner in his honor at the Punch offices, and a scheme MT and Lucy had jokingly concocted to blackmail wealthy persons with scurrilous obituaries supposedly to be published on their death; also, two letters from MT to Lucy and an MT letter to the editor to be sent out to the newspapers, offering to pay a good price for ‘access to my standing obituaries, with the privilege…of editing, not their facts, but their verdicts’ (p. 226). Also, tells the story of MT at a dinner given in his honor by the American Ambassador, Whitelaw Reid; MT had prepared a speech, but was not called to give one, and later confided to Lucy that he had sold it for two hundred dollars (p.  228)” [47].

Elmer James Bailey wrote “The Essayist and the Humourists, in editor Theodore Stanton’s, A Manual of American Literature. Tenney: ‘pp. 321-59; on MT, pp. 357-59. Regrets that MT was burdened by his reputation as a humorist and predicts that ‘future critics may come to regard The Prince and the Pauper (1882) and Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (1896), two serious and dignified pieces of writing, as Mr. Clemens’s best work.’ The Oxford degree awarded him, though a surprise to many, was evidence that ‘humor at last seems to be coming into its own’” [47].

Clark Sutherland Northrup wrote “The Novelists,” which appeared in editor Theodore Stanton’s A Manual of American Literature  (NY 1909), on Twain p. 187-88. Tenney quotes: “Artistically defective his work is indeed, but it cannot be denied the qualities of eloquence, naturalness, and sincerity. The work, like the man, is genuine” [47].

Michael Monahan included a chapter “Saint Mark” in his book Palms of Papyrus, etc. (1909), p.65-72. Tenney: “With passing, respectful references to MT’s JA, this is primarily a discussion of Joan of Arc herself, who, ever since her martyrdom, has been the ‘glory of the faith and the shame of the Church’” [Tenney, ALR Second Annual Supplement to the Reference Guide (Autumn, 1978) 177].

Mary Jeune (Lady St. Helier) in her 1909 book, Memories of Fifty Years (London) included p. 319-20 on Mark Twain. Tenney: “Mary Jeune sat by MT at a dinner given by the New Vagabonds on his first visit to England. Mr. Grossmith took the chair, and many boys from St.  Paul’s were present. He suggested they subordinate themselves to authority as a matter of expediency while young people ought to have independence in thought and conduct.  Afterwards, the editor of the school magazine said he had taken down the lecture in shorthand and would like to publish it in the school magazine, which he did. MT later was Mary Jeune’s dinner guest, and Lord Goschen became a friend, and invited him to dinner” [MTJ, Bibliographic Issue No. 4, Spring 2004, p. 9]. Note: the date of the New Vagabonds dinner in 1872 was not determined.

Cuyler Reynolds, ed., “Fulton Day.” New York at the Jamestown Exposition. Norfolk, Virginia, April 25 to December 1, 1907. Tenney: “MT was the guest of honor on Robert Fulton Day (Sept. 23, 1907). Texts of his introduction and his own speech are given, together with photographs of him on 407, 411. His secretary Isabel V. Lyon was with him (438)” [MTJ, Bibliographic Issue No. 4, Spring 2004, p. 9].

Current Literature ran an anonymous article, “Mark Twain’s Idea of Heaven,” p. 653-57, a review of Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven. Tenney: “‘one of the cleverest fantasies that has been published in a long while.’; consists entirely of plot-summary and extensive quotation until the concluding 38 lines, quoting a review in the New York AMERICAN (date not given), in which Edwin Markham says MT echoes Swedenborg’s picture of a heaven in which people, tired of praying and singing, request a life more like what they knew on earth [Tenney, ALR Second Annual Supplement to the Reference Guide (Autumn, 1978) 176].

A report of Mark Twain being admitted to honorary membership in the Nevada Historical Society ran in State of Nevada. First Biennial Report of the Nevada Historical Society, 1907- 1908. Tenney: “Provides text of the resolution admitting MT to honorary membership and describes its unanimous passage. On p. 149, Underwood & Underwood photograph of MT… [Tenney, ALR Third Annual Supplement to the Reference Guide (Autumn, 1979) 194].