June 20 Monday – In Kaltenleutgeben near Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Robert Collier, Lord Monkswell (1845-1909). Sam wanted to confirm statistics he’d read in a magazine article on copyright, that there were about 4,000 books published in each country including America, England, France, and Germany. Did those books indeed represent 1,000 “professional authors” in each? He didn’t need to be exact but there were no books in the village and he was depending on what he’d read in Berlin eight years before [MTP]. Note: in his June 28 to Chatto, Sam reveals he needs such statistics for an article.

Sam also wrote to Bettina Wirth, Vienna correspondent for the London Daily News. He offered conditions for reporting his talk, likely by Wirth:

If it can be taken down in short-hand & published in full, I shant mind that. I mean, such part (or all) of it as you use shall not be synopsized, but delivered directly from the one language into the other.

You get my idea? I can’t bear synopses. Look at the parliamentary speeches in the London papers—I mean when an important member’s speech gets muddled and stupefied into the synopsis form. / Sincerely Yours / SL Clemens / P.S. I haven’t lost that Reichsrath admission ticket—it’s only mislaid & I can’t find it. But I’ll have another hunt presently & send it [MTP: Bloomsbury Auction, July 8, 2010, Lot 193]. Note: Sam did not date this letter more than “Tuesday.” The MTP puts it as June 20, however, which was a Monday.