October 5 Monday – This is the likely day the Clemenses and Katy Leary took possession of a small house at 23 Tedworth Square, Chelsea, in southwest London. Sam’s Oct. 6 to Rogers states they were now “settled in a house.” They kept their address a secret, using Chatto & Windus for a return address and closing themselves off from nearly everyone. Sam’s Sept.
January 16 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “New cook has come—Jan. 16. First snow. About ½ inch” [NB 41 TS 4].
January 15 Friday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London Sam wrote a general letter about several matters to H.H. Rogers: He liked the contracts they’d signed. He supposed Harry Rogers (H.H. Rogers, Jr.) had turned sixteen in October (actually his birthday was Dec. 28) and that he’d tried to vote in November.
January 12 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Cook gone—another come; 4 in 3½ months. More than we had in 18 yrs at home” [NB 41 TS 4].
January 11 Monday – Sam’s notebook:
January 7 Thursday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to his sister, Pamela Moffett, who had complained to Orion that Sam answered his letters but not hers. Sam explained he was in the habit of writing Orion “about 8 times a year,” paying Orion “one for six” of his letters. Then he confessed the real reason for not writing to her:
January 6 Wednesday – From Gribben p.140 : “On 6 and 7 January 1897 Mark Twain amused himself with working notes ‘for a farce or sketch’ (or perhaps ‘an Operetta’) which would employ ‘pilgrims to Canterbury’ accompanied by Chaucer himself’” [NB 39 TS 43; NB 40 TS 1].
January 5 Tuesday – Colonel Andrew S. Burt wrote to Sam (four half pages, typed) from Ft. Missoula, Mont., having rec’d his two-page letter and inscribed copy of LM . Burt sent family sentiments, told of opening the wrapped book at Christmas and asked when Sam might return to Ft. Missoula.
January 4 Monday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London Sam cabled to H.H. Rogers: “CONTRACTS SIGNED.” Not extant but quoted in his letter this day to Rogers.
January 3 Sunday – Sam’s notebook from Jan. 7 about this day:
London — / Last Sunday [Jan.3] I struck upon a new “solution” of a haunting mystery. Great many years ago (20?) I published in the Atlantic “The Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut.”
That was an attempt to account for our seeming duality —the presence in us of another person; not a slave of ours, but free & independent, & with a character distinctly its own.