June 5 Tuesday – Chatto & Windus wrote to Sam that they’d been unable to secure a copy of Lownsbury’s Life of James Fenimore Cooper, but they would send for one “from the other side without delay” and hoped he would call on them when in London [MTP].
June 2 Saturday – H.H. Rogers wrote again to Sam, relating a minor dust-up with James W. Paige over signing patents. Paige had delayed signing, arguing he was not quite prepared to take out foreign patents.
June 1 Friday – In Paris, France Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall.
Mrs. Clemens & I have read your letter & are sincerely sorry for your hard situation. I wish I could make it better; I certainly would if I could. But the whole business being now in the hands of the creditors, I have no authority & can do nothing.
If the assignment was a put-up job I knew nothing of it, & never in the least suspected it.
June – The final serial segment of Pudd’nhead Wilson ran in the Century, and was called “resplendent as ever in faultless typography and unsurpassed engravings” by the N.Y. Times, June 2, p.3 “New Publications”. Sam was anxious to get the book published.
Sam inscribed a photograph of himself to Mrs. Hapgood: To Mrs. Hapgood / With the kindest regards of / S.L. Clemens. / June 1894 [MTP].
May 31 Thursday – In Paris Sam wrote to Henry H. Rogers, minutes after hearing from his secretary, Katharine I. Harrison, of the death of Abbie Gifford Rogers (Mrs. Rogers).
May 30 Wednesday – In Paris, Sam wrote a short note to Robert Underwood Johnson:
My dear Johnson: I reminded Dr. Boyland the other day to forward his MS. to you (about the Commune I think it is) and he said he would. It is the MS. I spoke to you about. Yours in a hell of a hurry. S.L. Clemens [MTP: Am. Art Catalog, Feb. 17, 1926, Item 97]. Note: Dr. Halstead Boyland; “the other day” may have been in London or since in Paris.
May 26 Saturday – The Athenaeum, No. 3474 p.676 printed a brief review of Tom Sawyer Abroad. Tenney quotes: “A dull book, and ‘a grievous disappointment to admirers of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and of his friend Huckleberry Finn…it is a pity that [MT] should squander himself on such a book as this’” [22].
May 25 Friday – In Paris Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, wondering if the two Rogers girls had gone home, because there was no sign of them and they were not at the Hotel Victoria in London. He repeated that he would take the family to Aix-les-Bains toward the end of June, then sail back from Southampton. If by chance the newest Paige typesetter was completed, would Rogers please cable him in care of Drexel, Paris.
May 24 Thursday – Frederick Blackwood (1st Marquis of Dufferin) wrote to Sam at the Hotel Brighton:
My dear Mr. Clemens / How very kind of you to have remembered my request. I am indeed most grateful especially for the charming autograph inscription which the book contains. Very shortly we are having a garden party, and I hope you will still be in Paris when it takes place.” Sam wrote on the envelope, “Lord Dufferin” [MTP].
May 22 Tuesday – In Paris at the Hotel Brighton Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers. He told about trying to chase down Rogers’ two daughters, Mrs. Duff and Miss May, who had gone to Switzerland. He wrote about his two-day stopover in London and his offer from Mary Anderson’s agent to speak ten nights for two thousand pounds. Then he related the family’s plans and his forecasted return: