February 27 Monday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Frank Bliss.

The enclosed has just reached me from Mr. Rogers.

I don’t quite get the idea. Why should you want to take out repetitions of old copyrights? Do it if you want to, but it doesn’t seem necessary. …

If you are afraid I could be endangered by having property in my own name—but I couldn’t be, for I don’t owe money to anyone; I am out of debt.

February 26 Sunday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to (Major “Alligator Jack”) John B. Downing (1834-1914), Mississippi pilot for nearly three decades. Downing’s letter is not extant.

February 25 Saturday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder.

I have abandoned my Autobiography, & am not going to finish it; but I took a reminiscent chapter out of it some time ago & had it copyrighted & had it type-written, thinking it would make a readable magazine article; & sent it to my friend H.H. Rogers, 26 Broadway.

February 24 Friday – Douglas M. Gane inscribed his book New South Wales and Victoria in 1885: “To Samuel L. Clemens, Esq., with compliments, from Douglas M. Gane, 24, 2, 99” [MTP]. See Gribben p. 251.

February 19 Sunday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to H.H. Rogers, after receiving another letter (not extant) with profitable stock news:

February 18 Saturday – Hy Mayer’s article, “Unconventional Statues—V. ‘Would Make a Sphinx Laugh,’” ran in The Criterion (N.Y.), p.15: Tenney: “A full-page cartoon of MT, pipe in mouth, sitting in a lap of a laughing sphinx statue” [MTJ Bibliographic Issue Number Four 42:1 (Spring 2004) 7].

Richard Watson Gilder wrote to Sam [MTP:NYPL not yet in file]. In Gilder Letter-Press Book v.4 p. 189.

February 17 Friday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Annette Hullah, a student of Theodor Leschetizky.

It was a very great pleasure you gave me in putting that book into my hands; it had ended-up a good many days comfortably & interestingly for me after my drudge of work. I thank you lots & lots.

February 15 Wednesday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to Charles Dudley Warner, whose letter is not extant.

Oh, I hope it isn’t a case of “never.” As nearly as we can guess, we shall get back home next fall. I recognise that the friends are passing, & that if we would see the remnant we must not delay too long. It has become a funeral procession, & if I want to get a good place in it I must apply soon.

February 13 Monday – Chatto & Windus wrote to Sam “in reply to your letter of February 7th,” giving a list of his works which had not been given permission for translation into French: 1. More Tramps Abroad (FE); 2. JA; 3 TS,D; 4 TSA; 5 PW; 6 £ 1,000,000 Bank Note. Numbers 1, 3, 5 and 6 had already been translated into German by Robert Lutz of Stuttgart [MTP].

February 11 Saturday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to an unidentified man, that his “engagements already overburden me, & to add to them would not be wise” [MTP].

The Utica N.Y. Saturday Globe ran an article identifying the original of Colonel Sellers in The Gilded Age as James W. Wardner [Tenney 30: The Twainian Jan-Feb, 1957 p.4].