January 21 Friday – Sam’s notebook:
Jan. 21. The other day I wrote Percy Mitchell (Paris) & asked him to try & get a copy of “Aurore” for me (containing Zola’s grand letter.) This is his answer:
“I hasten gladly to send you Zola’s letter. I had put it away among my archives under ‘Clean French literature.’ The compartment is empty now” [NB 40 TS 7-8]. Note: L’Aurore. Littéraire, artistique, social. (French periodical) [Gribben 32].
January 20 Thursday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.
“Yours of the 5th is to hand. It is very good news: that when you have paid Barrow up, & the last 25% div. to the other creditors (except Grant & the Bank) we shall still have about $1,000 left in cash. This is exceedingly bully; the best music we have heard lately.” [Note: there is no extant HHR letter for Jan. 5, but there is one for Jan. 6—possibly Sam refers to the Jan. 6 letter].
January 19 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook:
January 16 Sunday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to James Whitcomb Riley in Indianapolis, thanking him for a book sent in fulfillment of a “promise made …in Washington so many years ago…” He wrote he’d direct his Hartford publisher to send him a copy of his book (likely FE). After his signature he noted, “London weather in Vienna! / —fog to smell & the electric to work by at noon-day” [MTP].
January 15 Saturday – Charles De Kay (1848-1935), art and literary critic of the N.Y. Times for eighteen years, wrote a review of FE which was published this day in the Times, “Mark Twain’s Mixed Pickles,” p. BR 40:
Mark Twain’s new book will challenge comparisons with “Innocents Abroad,” because it is cast on similar lines, being a salmi of plain information spiced with wit and humor. With such works each reader must decide whether the mixture suits him or not. …
January 14 Friday – Sam’s notebook:
Jan. 14, 1898. Began to write comedy “Is He Dead?” (Francois Millet.)
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Make Plays—with a German for Principal character (Dutchy) an Irishman, a Scotchman, a Chinaman[,] a Japanese, a negro (George) Uncle John Quarles who was very like the Yankee farmer in Old Homestead.
Write an Old Homestead of the South” [NB 42, TS 53]. Note: Denman Thompson and George W. Ryder’s The Old Homestead (4-act play 1886) [Gribben 700].
January 13 Thursday – Sam’s notebook: “Jan 13 ’98 Sent 3 fables to Century” [NB 42 TS 53].
At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to Henry C. Robinson’s Dec. 29, 1897 letter.
January 12 Wednesday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Sam wrote to Henry Loomis Nelson, editor at Harper’s Weekly (1894-1898) .
January 11 Tuesday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Livy wrote for Sam to Samuel E. Moffett.
“Your Uncle wants me to say that he desires you to keep the letter that I sent you entirely private” [MTP].
January 10 Monday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria Livy wrote for Sam to Chatto & Windus, acknowledging receipt of a six months statement and check for £1095.9.10; they were “greatly pleased with the excellent showing of the statement and the consquent size of the check” [MTP]. Note: in the six-month period from July 1, 1897 to Jan. 1, 1898, Chatto printed 18,000 copies of FE [Welland 238].