January 29 Friday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London Sam wrote to Patrick A. Collins, “ever so much obliged” for Collin’s evident supplying of a US Consul’s name in Venice. Sam explained the reason he had not called on Collins was that in their bereavement they had hidden away “until such time as we may be enabled to confront life again & resume relations with our species” [MTP].
March 8 Monday – The day Sam invited Dr. James Ross Clemens to tea. The doctor likely made the appointment, or at least visited before Mar. 25 when Sam mentioned seeing him [Mar. 5 and Mar. 25 to JR Clemens].
March 5 Friday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to James Ross Clemens in London.
Your note [not extant] has just arrived this evening—it has been searching round for one for a day or two.
August 17 Monday – At noon in Guildford, Sam finished his Aug. 16 letter to Livy.
Monday noon. Chatto is evidently off on his vacation. I do not hear from him.
I enclose a letter received this morning, about the photos. It has no signature, but I suppose it is from Miss Blood — so I have answered it.
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: