May 20 Thursday – Independent included an anonymous review of American Claimant and Other Stories and Sketches, (volume 21 of the Uniform Edition) p.650. In full:

May 19 Wednesday – The date placed on the typed form for renewal of copyright for IA sent by The American Publishing Co. and signed by Sam on May 31 in London [MTP].

May 18 Tuesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, “unspeakably glad” to report that “just this minute” he had “finished this book again” (FE). He’d been able to add 30,000 words by “making fun” of the Jameson raid, an account he’d feared would be boring and uninteresting. Evidently Bliss had paid the required $10,000, so Sam thought he would send the MS directly to Bliss.

May 17 Monday – Frank Andrew Munsey wrote from N.Y. to Sam

My excuse for writing you is to do something, the last thing I can do, for one who admired you deeply. I refer to George Griffin, your old butler. He is dead. He died very suddenly Saturday morning, May 8th , and was buried in New York on the following Tuesday. His wife called him at the usual hour of six o’clock. He threw up his hands and in a few moments was dead. It was heart disease. It seems that he had had more or less trouble from this source for a considerable time.

May 9 Sunday – Pushed even farther back in the NY Times on p. 23 was an Assoc. Press dispatch from London Dated May 8, “Mark Twain in Good Health.” The article announced Sam was still working hard on his new book and that his publishers had asked for an additional 30,000 words on Africa. An expanded article ran on June 2, p.7, “Mark Twain’s Health Good.”

May 8 Saturday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam replied to another (not- extant) invitation to dine from John Y. MacAlister. Yes, he would come “pretty soon” and would also like to “get out the manilas and repeat our smokes,” but Livy was ailing and he needed to spend his evenings with her for now. Also, the addition to the book for S. Africa “comes hard” after he’d thought he was done but expected to finish up in about ten days [MTP].

May 7 Friday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus: “Please send me Garrett’s book, reviewed this morning: ‘Story of an African Crisis’—Constable & Co” [MTP]. Note: Edmund Garrett. Sam annotated the book throughout in both pencil and ink, and mentioned Garrett’s book in ch. 65 of FE, “characterizing Garrett as ‘a brilliant writer partial to [Cecil] Rhodes’.” Sam praised Garrett’s account of the Jameson raid as “the best one I have met with” [Gribben 253]

May 6 Thursday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to James Ross Clemens, sorry that he was “having this ill turn,” and offering to do anything to help. Livy had offered to help [MTP]. Note. James’ illness was the source of the rumor that Sam was desperately ill, or dying, or even dead. Paine writes:

May 4 Tuesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to

Richard Edgcumbe : “I shall be very glad indeed to come. With many thanks I am / Sincerely Yours / SL Clemens” [Sotheby’s June 19, 2003 catalog, p.72 Lot 85].

May 3 Monday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam replied to Frank Bliss’s long-awaited letter, not-extant

Now you’re speaking up! Your letter had a virile ring to it. I had concluded weeks ago that your interest in the book was a little pale.

Yes, come over here. I have thought of it fifty times.