December 9 Wednesday – In London Sam wrote per Livy to Franklin G. Whitmore.

Mr. Clemens wants me to ask you if you will inquire at Bundy’s old photograph shop and ask if they have the negative of a picture that was taken of Susy in 1891. …

      Mr. Clemens is working every day but he finds it rather up-hill work [MTP].

December 5 Saturday – In London Sam wrote to J. Henry Harper:

You lately mentioned “Merry Tales.” If is isn’t too late, please squelch that title & call the mess by some other name — almost any other name. Webster & Co. invented that silly title [MTP].

December 1 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook entry: Slam at Geoffrey Hamlyn [Gribben 374; NB 39 TS 29]. Note: see Jan. 8, 1896 entry about this book of Henry Kingsley. Another entry: Trials of Mutinous Convicts (book) [Gribben 713; NB 39 TS 28]. Note: this is an unidentified book titled, Trials of Mutinous Convicts.

December – Sometime during the month Sam wrote through Livy to Chatto & Windus asking if they’d send him Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery, and charge it to his account [MTP].

Sam also inscribed a copy of Tom Sawyer, Detective (Chatto & Windus 1897) to Bram Stoker: To B.S. from M.T. with warm regards. London, December, 1896 [MTP].

November 30 Monday – Sam’s 61st Birthday.

Livy wrote to Andrew Chatto Jr. “Enclosed please find the check for the Swifts [bicycles] which you so kindly helped us to get. I think my daughters find cycling quite another thing now that they have their own machines” [MTP].

November 28 Saturday Sam’s notebook for this day:

November 27 Friday – Livy’s 51st birthday. Sam wrote Livy a short note “With worlds of love” to her:

We have lost her, & our life is bitter. We may find her again — let us not despair of it. God knows how much poorer were by this loss than we were before; but we still have the others, & that is much; & also we have each other, my darling, & this is riches.

November 26 Thursday – Thanksgiving – In London Sam wrote in his notebook:

We did not celebrate it. Seven years ago Susy gave her play for the first time [MTB 1027].

He also wrote to Emilie R. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers)  “For & in behalf of Helen Kellar…” (Sam was consistent in misspelling Helen Keller’s name.)

November 24 Tuesday – In London Sam wrote to the Players Club. His note ran in the Dec. 31, 1896 N.Y. Tribune.

November 22 Sunday – In London Sam wrote a letter of thanks to the junior Andrew Chatto for the bicycles he’d helped secure. He wrote that his daughters were “charmed with the machines” and the family thanked him. He asked the sum of what he owed for them so he might send a check [MTP].