September 3 Monday – Sam finished his Sept. 2 letter to H.H. Rogers.
Monday morning, Joan. I hadn’t any trouble there. That is a book which writes itself, a tale which tells itself; I merely have to hold the pen.
Sam had written ten or eleven thousand more words for six days of work so far in Etretat, and planned it as a two-volume work:
September 2 Sunday – In Etretat, France (“In bed — noon”) Sam began a letter to H.H. Rogers that he finished Sept. 3.
The facts are distorted in that “Sun” squib. (When you see it in the Sun it ain’t so.) [See Aug. 15 for Sun article, which is possibly the one Sam referred to.]
September 1 Saturday – At the Chalet des Abris in Etretat, France, Sam wrote to Charles W. Dayton, New York Postmaster about a notification of a registered letter sent from Austria.
I am all in a tremor & a sweat to get that registered letter from Austria, for I feel almost certain it is the Emperor resigning in my favor. Do shove it right along…[MTP].
September – The North American Review published the final segment of Sam’s essay, “In Defense of Harriet Shelley” (July–Sept.).
August 28 Tuesday – In Etretat, France Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, concerned about the mix-up in the publication date for PW. Publication had to be coordinated between England and the US to ensure copyright.
Oh, my God, this is a state of things! Mr. Hall, & the Assignee [Bainbridge Colby] & everybody else knew, away back yonder the last of April, & you ought of course to have been told that at the time.
August 27 Monday – Chatto & Windus wrote to Sam about delays in receiving a duplicate set of illustrations to use in PW [MTP].
August 26 Sunday – In Etretat, France Sam worked this day and the next on an unspecified magazine article, which he did not finish.
August 25 Saturday – In Etretat, France Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers:
I find the Madam ever so much better in health and strength; but disappointed, for she hoped you and Mrs. Duff would come and let her take care of you as she proposed; but I told her I didn’t get the letter, which was true. But I don’t see how she would take care of anybody in this little Chalet des Abris, which is such an incredibly small coop that the family can’t find room to sleep without hanging their legs out of the windows.
August 24 Friday – Harper & Brothers wrote to Sam (the letter is not extant but is mentioned in Sam’s Sept. 9 to Rogers) that they’d sent a typed copy of JA, express paid. Sam still had not received the MS itself by Sept. 9.
Rogers signed a contract for Livy with Frank Bliss for the publication of PW by the American Publishing Co. [MTHHR 71-2].
August 23 Thursday † – Sam reached Etretat, France on the Normandy coast by this day, reuniting with his family [Sept. 2-3 to Rogers].
Mrs. James French-King’s article, “Character Reading of Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain),” ran in Freedom, a weekly Boston paper, p.3. This was a journal devoted to “Mental Science” [Tenney, ALR supplement to the Reference Guide (Autumn, 1980) 172].