November 4 Wednesday Sam’s notebook for this day:
Clara went with Mrs. Hopekirk Wilson yesterday & saw a young English girl of 20 (pupil of Letzitinski’s) play before an audience for the first time. The girl’s name is Goodson, Clara says she is not pretty, but has a most interesting face [NB 39 TS 19]. Helen Hopekirk Wilson (1856-1945).
November 3 Tuesday – William McKinley defeated Williams Jennings Bryan in a campaign centering on free silver. Sam had hoped the silver men would win out, thus allowing him to pay his creditors with somewhat devalued currency (H.H. Rogers was a McKinley man).
November 2 Monday – In London Sam wrote to Bram Stoker, asking that a man be fired:
As you may know, I have lately lost my eldest daughter. For this reason I & my wife go nowhere & see nobody; otherwise I would call upon you or ask you to visit me.
November – Gribben writes,
At the end of a list of books that Clemens read in London in November 1896 appears “2 Years in F. — Lytton Forbes” (NB 37, TS 26). Subsequently he quoted from Forbes’ book (merely citing “Forbes’s ‘Two Years in Fiji’”) in chapter 8 of FE (1897), where he presented Forbes’s account of two foreigners who mysteriously appeared in Fiji and whose homeland could never be determined. [235] Note: Arthur Forbes, Two Years in Fiji (1875).
October 31 Saturday – In London Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus.
Am very much obliged. I enclose the house-rent cheque drawn to your order, for £90.2.0. I believe this completes the payment of the house-rent for the first 6 months. Mr. Garth’s address is — — — damn, I’ve begun on the wrong page — is / 3 Polstead Road / Oxford.
Sam added after his signature a request for them to tell any inquirers that he was “entirely out of the lecture field” [MTP].
October 26 Monday – At the Tedworth Square house in Chelsea, London, Sam began work on the manuscript of Following the Equator [Dec. 18 to Rogers]. Note: he may have started even earlier, as he added a note to Bliss on Oct. 21 that he was working on it.
He also wrote to Chatto & Windus, supposed they hadn’t received the Bourget-Max O’Rell article he’d sent by messenger. He had another piece for them:
October 24 Saturday – In London Sam wrote in his notebook:
Wrote the first chapter of the book to-day — Around the World [MTB 1026; NB 39 TS 14]. Note: FE.
October 22 Thursday – Gribben writes that Sam discovered the book The History of a Slave (not further identified) in the London Library [315; NB 39 TS 32]. Also found, Sir Basil Home Thomson’s The Diversions of a Prime Minister (1894) [702; NB 39 TS 12]. Sam also noted he’d withdrawn a copy of William Knighton’s The Private Life of an Eastern King, etc. from the London Library [Ibid.]. See also Jan.
October 20 Tuesday – In London Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus about material (unspecified) he’d sent, asking them to “look it over & see if it will do.” After his signature, some clue as to what he’d sent:
This Diary is full of underscorings (for use on the platform) PAY NO ATTENTION TO THEM [MTP].
Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers.
October 2 Friday – In London, Sam wrote a short note to Percy Spalding:
No, we’ll not have the contract stamped. Disagreements & misunderstandings between the Garths & us are not possible. We are two pairs of constitutionally just & fair-minded people [MTP: TS: Anderson Auction Co. catalogs, Nov. 25, 1930 Item 48].