June 28 Tuesday – Sam later wrote of the mix-up of this morning:

In Naples at 10 a.m. sailing-day I sent my courier to the local agent to inquire if all was right. He was told the casket was on board. The ship was to sail at 4. I arrived on board about 3, & was astounded to learn there were no certificates [for the casket], & that if I could not produce them the casket must be put ashore, because without them it would not be allowed to land in America.

June – The Critic for June, p.518-24 ran an illustrated (six photographs) article, “Mark Twain from an Italian Point of View” by Raffaele Simboli, correspondent for the Nuova Antologia. See Nov. 6, 1903 entry for excerpt. Included in the pictures was one of Jean Clemens on her white Italian saddle- horse (see insert), a gift from Livy, which would die in an August trolley accident in Lee, Mass. Also in this issue was Mark Twain’s “Letter to an Italian Editor,” p.

May – Bookman (NY), p. 235-6, ran Harry Thurston Peck’s article, “Mark Twain at Ebb Tide.” Tenney: “A review of Extracts from Adam’s Diary as showing ‘just how far a man who was once a great humorist can fall. We thought when we read A Double-Barrelled Detective Story that Mark Twain could do no worse. But we were wrong’” [40].

Harper’s Weekly ran an interview with Mark Twain by J. M’Arthur [Tenney 39: Henderson (1911) p. 223].

April – A text of Sam’s autobiographical dictation survives made from Isabel Lyon’s notes during this month, that Paine later titled, “Henry H. Rogers,” and joined with a later manuscript (MTA 1: 250-56) [AMT 192]. Note: the source gives a 1906 MS typed by Josephine Hobby (1862-1950) and points out that Hobby copied a now lost earlier TS created by Jean Clemens. This is the only of six known Florence A.D.’s that Sam did not include in his final Autobiography. See Jan. 8, 14 entries.

March – Metropolitan Magazine ran “An Interview with Mark Twain” by Clara Morris, the actress [Tenney 39: The Twainian (Feb. 1943)]. “Recollections of ain interview, apparently years earlier, in Wallack’s Theatre; the conversation with ‘Mr. Twain’ is reconstructed vaguely and imperfectly from memory. Illustrated with a drawing of MT by Edmund Frederick. (NYPL)” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Third Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1979 p. 189]. See Insert.

February – Fernando Fini wrote to Sam, sometime between Feb. and Apr. 1904. The letter is three pages of Italian [MTP].

G. Herbert Thring for Society of Authors, London sent Sam a printed announcement for their dinner at the Hotel Cecil on Apr. 20 [MTP].

T.M. Parrott’s article, “Mark Twain: Made in America,” ran in Booklovers’ Magazine, p. 145-54. Tenney: “An extensive, general discussion of MT’s writing, which is characterized by a sweet sunniness, across which no shadow of impurity ever falls” [40].

January to May, 1904 — Daniel Willard Fiske wrote a note on a brown scrap of paper:  Since 2 this a.m. I am enjoying a stalwart assault of gout.  Mrs. Schaeffer, sister of Eugene Schuyler, his biographer and the editor of his writings, with her interesting daughter, is at the Villino Montebello. I don’t [know] whether you know her or not. Kindest regards and best wishes to Mrs. Clemens & the house hold [MTP]

December – Sam’s story, “A Dog’s Tale” first ran in Harper’s Monthly this issue. Budd: “Shortly afterward it was published as a pamphlet…by the National Anti-Vivisection Society in London, dated 1903, although it was apparently not distributed until 1904. The story was published in a separate edition in September 1904 as A Dog’s Tale…and was included in the collection The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1906)”  [Collected 2: 1008].

November 6 Friday – The Clemens family arrived in Genoa, Italy. The last leg of their journey was to be by train to Florence, Italy, some six or seven hours. The New York Times ran a squib on Nov. 9, p. 7 which revealed that George Gregory Smith met the family in Genoa and accompanied them on to Florence, so likely he had arranged the rail travel, some 480 miles. This would make the family’s arrival in Florence at about 8 or 9 p.m.

November –This issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal contained Thomas E. Marr’s “Three Famous Authors Outdoors, p. 36-7, with four of the photographs Marr took of Sam Clemens with a porcelain cat, and John T. Lewis at Quarry Farm.