August 26 Monday – In Saranac Lake, N.Y. Sam wrote to C.F. Moberly Bell, editor of the London Times, asking for the title of Dr. Morrison’s book about his walk through China and Burma, as his copy that Bell had given him was “packed up with our stuff in New York.” He remembered the facts he was quoting but not the title of the book [MTP].
August 27 Tuesday – In Saranac Lake, N.Y. Sam replied to John Y. MacAlister’s Aug. 2 letter.
Drop the mental telegraphy!—your machine isn’t synchronous with mine (which is out of repair) & won’t work.
August 28 Wednesday – In Saranac Lake, N.Y. Sam wrote to John H. Stevens, older brother of Ed Stevens, one of Sam’s sidekicks in the Marion Rangers, 1861.
August 29 Thursday – In Saranac Lake, N.Y. Sam wrote to Frank Bliss, rethinking the idea of writing a book on lynchings:
No, upon reflection it won’t do for me to write that book if Mr. Newbegin values his Southern Trade, for I shouldn’t have even half a friend left, down there, after it issued from the press.
August 30 Friday – Sam was writing “The Double-Barrelled Detective Story,” averaging eighteen pages per day between Aug. 29 and Sept. 6 [Sept. 6 to Rogers].
August 31 Saturday – In Saranac Lake, N.Y. Sam wrote a typewritten letter (perhaps by Jean) to H.H. Armsworth in Chicago; evidently the letter made its way there and back with a “name not in directory” marking. Sam enclosed a printed postcard for Armsworth’s use, an inquiry to R.G. Newbegin & Co. 68 Read Street, N.Y.C.
September 1 Sunday – Sam was writing “The Double-Barrelled Detective Story,” averaging eighteen pages per day between Aug. 29 and Sept. 6 [Sept. 6 to Rogers].
September 2 Monday – Sam was writing “The Double-Barrelled Detective Story,” averaging eighteen pages per day between Aug. 29 and Sept. 6 [Sept. 6 to Rogers].
September 3 Tuesday – Sam was writing “The Double-Barrelled Detective Story,” averaging eighteen pages per day between Aug. 29 and Sept. 6 [Sept. 6 to Rogers].
September 4 Wednesday – In Saranac Lake, N.Y. Sam wrote to Harper & Brothers. All that survives is his PS in a 1902 facsimile for a Harper’s Monthly Magazine Prospectus: “P.S. Before January I shall have a story ready for the magazine” [MTP].
September 5 Thursday – Sam was writing “The Double-Barrelled Detective Story,” averaging eighteen pages per day between Aug. 29 and Sept. 6 [Sept. 6 to Rogers].
Joe Twichell wrote to Sam from Hewitt Lake, Minerva, N.Y. In part:
September 6 Friday – In Saranac Lake, N.Y. Sam wrote, forwarding Joe Twichell’s Sept. 5 to H.H.
Rogers: “From Twichell. Needn’t return it, Mr. Rogers; —don’t need it. Waste-basket it” [MTP; not in MTHHR].
September 7 Saturday – In Saranac Lake, N.Y. while Sam worked to finish “The Double-Barrelled Detective Story,” the rest of the Clemens family was “away all day, on an engagement ten or fifteen miles from here” (unspecified) [Sept. 8 to Pond].
September 8 Sunday – In Saranac Lake, N.Y. Sam wrote a short note to Frank Bliss, still haunted by the possibilities of a book on Lynching in the U.S. “After October 20 (we shall be settled at housekeeping by that time…) I want to talk with you about it.” On the lower left corner of the letter he added: “I wonder if George Kennan wouldn’t collaborate with me?” [MTP].
September 9 Monday – The ledger books of Chatto & Windus show that between Sept. 9, 1901 and Jan. 25, 1908, three additional printings totaling 4,500 copies of Tom Sawyer Abroad were printed, totaling 14,500 [Welland 237]. Chatto & Windus’ Jan. 1, 1904 statement to Clemens shows 1,500 3s.6d.
September 10 Tuesday – In Saranac Lake, N.Y. Sam wrote to Joe Twichell.
DEAR JOE,—It is another off day, but tomorrow I shall resume work to a certainty, and bid a long farewell to letter-scribbling.
September 11 Wednesday – In Saranac Lake, N.Y. Sam wrote a short compliment to his nephew Samuel E.
September 12 Thursday – In Saranac Lake, N.Y. Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka of Harper’s that his address would be in care of H.H. Rogers until Oct. 1, then Riverdale on the Hudson [MTP].
Sam also wrote to James B. Pond.
Sept. 14, 1901 – William McKinley died from his Sept. 6 gunshot wound. In Buffalo, N.Y. Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as the new President
September 15 Sunday – Sam inscribed in the front free endpaper of Great Religions of the World, by Herbert Allen Giles (1845-1935), et al (1901): “S.L. Clemens / Ampersand / Saranac Lake, N.Y. / Sept.
September 16 Monday – Saranac Lake: Sam wrote to Mrs. Virginia Frazer Boyle in Memphis, Tenn.
September 18 Wednesday – In Saranac Lake, N.Y. Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers that they were packed and would leave in the morning for Elmira. The rest of the letter has to do with what he felt was “a mighty cold -blooded piece of rascality” by the R.G. Newbegin Co. in resorting “to forgery” in their pamphlet on his uniform edition. He suggested a lawsuit:
September 19 Thursday – In the morning before leaving Saranac Lake, N.Y. Sam wrote a goodbye note to Mr. and Mrs. George V. Duryee, the real estate agent who leased their house over the lake: “Hail and Farewell! / It has been Paradise to us all Summer” [MTP].
Probably this day or Sept. 18 Sam wrote a quick note to H.H. Rogers.