Submitted by scott on

July 26 Saturday  Sam met Lewis Carroll, who later wrote in his diary, “Met Mr. Clemens (Mark Twain), with whom I was pleased and interested” [Green 382]. Paine incorrectly indicates the meeting was in 1873, and uses Sam’s 1906 Autobiography for the recollection of the meeting:

We met a great many other interesting people, among them Lewis Carroll, author of the immortal Alice— but he was only interesting to look at, for he was the stillest and shyest full-grown man I have ever met except “Uncle Remus.” Doctor MacDonald and several other lively talkers were present, and the talk went briskly along for a couple of hours, but Carroll sat still all the while except that now and then he answered a question. His answers were brief. I do not remember that he elaborated any of them [MTA 2: 232]. Note: Paine incorrectly puts the family’s arrival London at July 29 instead of July 20, which led him to believe the meeting with Lewis Carroll took place in 1873. MTNJ corrects this date by Livy’s letter to her mother of July 20, which verifies the July 26 meeting noted in Carroll’s diary as correct.

Editor Note
OLC to Olivia Lewis Langdon, 20 July 1879 · London, England, (UCCL 01677).

Text not available.

I found nothing about this in Notebooks and Journals but there is a citation in the on-line edition of Twain's Autobiography:
22 March 1906: note for 433.36–38," in Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1. 2010 <http://www.marktwainproject.org/xtf/view?docId=works/MTDP10362.xml;style=work;brand=mtp;chunk.id=d1e13786#an433.36–38>

Day By Day Acknowledgment

Mark Twain Day By Day was originally a print reference, meticulously created by David Fears, who has generously made this work available, via the Center for Mark Twain Studies, as a digital edition.   

Contact Us