December – Sam inscribed in a copy of Joseph Norman Lockyer’s (1836-1920) Elementary Lessons in Astronomy (1877): “S.L. Clemens, Munich, Dec. 1878” [Gribben 415].

December 1 Sunday – Sam wrote from Munich to his mother, and sister Pamela:

I broke the back of life yesterday & started down-hill toward old age. This fact has not produced any effect upon me that I can detect.

December 2 Monday – Sam wrote from Munich to Olivia Lewis Langdon, thanking her for a birthday gift (a “covered Krug of beaten brass”). Sam wrote about the many noises that began at 5 AM and were added to by 7, and how many of the things they disliked upon arrival had now been fixed, cleaned, attended to.

December 8 Sunday – Livy, Susy and Sam wrote from Munich to Olivia Lewis Langdon. Most of the letter is from Livy to her mother, whom she’d only received one letter from since they left home. Livy wrote of sore throats and ear aches, Clara Spaulding and Christmas gifts. What her mother had sent was too much, Livy wrote (several times during the trip her mother sent money).

December 14 Saturday – Sam wrote from Munich to Bayard Taylor. Sam had heard in Italy a few weeks back that Taylor was ill, but then saw it contradicted in a newspaper. This day he read that the contradiction was in error. Sam ended by saying they would try to “run over to Berlin in the spring.” [MTLE 3: 112]. Bayard Taylor, the “father of American travel literature,” died five days after Sam wrote him, on Dec. 19, 1878.

December 18 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook:

“On some of the large ocean steamers the old-fashioned settees have been replaced by revolving arm chairs—Harper’s Weekly gravely makes this preposterous statement. Who could stay in one in a storm?” [MTNJ 2: 252].

December 20 Friday – Sam’s notebook:

“To-day, by telegraph in the papers, comes the sad news of Bayard Taylor’s death yesterday afternoon in Berlin, from Dropsy. I wrote him 3 or 4 days ago congratulating him on his recovery. He was a very lovable man” [MTNJ 2: 254].

December 21 Saturday – Sam’s notebook:

“Munich, Dec 21—On scores of street corners, in the snow, are groves of Xmas trees for sale—and the toy & other shops are crowded and driving a tremendous trade” [MTNJ 2: 255].

December 23 Monday – Joe Twichell wrote to Sam; not found at MTP though catalogued as UCLC 32703.

December 25 Wednesday – Christmas –­ Sam’s notebook:

Christmas in Germany.

December 26? Thursday – Sam wrote from Munich to Olivia Lewis Langdon, thanking her for “the magnificent ‘Faust’” [book] she sent for Christmas. “Livy gave me a noble great copy of ‘Reinicke Fuchs,’ nearly as big as the Faust, & containing the original Kaulbach illustrations.” Sam also thanked Susan Crane for her gift [MTLE 3: 113].

December 28 Saturday Baron Tauchnitz wrote from Leipzig.

My dear Sir, / Some time ago I had the pleasure of publishing your work “Tom Sawyer” and I shall be glad to add to my Series another of your books. / Will you be kind enough therefore to send me at your earliest convenience a copy of one or two of your books which you think most popular, that I may print my edition from them [MTP].

December 31 Tuesday – Clemens gave a reading which included “The Invalid’s Story,” to the American Artists Club, Munich Germany [MTPO].

[Continue on the 1879]

January – Sam wrote a long, newsy letter sometime during the month from Munich, Germany to an unidentified person. he was working on A Tramp Abroad and mentioned that a big octavo book, “requires a long pull and an almighty steady one.” Sam missed New England weather:

“I ache for a good honest all day, all night snowstorm, with a wind-up gale of 150 miles an hour and 35 degrees below zero. that is the only kind of weather that is fit and right for January” [MTLE 4: 1].

January 4 Saturday – Sam’s notebook:

Went to Grossen Kirschof & saw 15 or 20 dead [Southern Cemetery of Munich]

January 5 Sunday – Susan & Charles Dudley Warner wrote to Sam and Livy, expressing that they missed them and urging them to come home—all in a nearly illegible hand [MTP].

January 12 Sunday – the Clemenses loved to entertain, something expected of many Nook Farm residents. according to Twichell’s journal, a dinner was given at Sam’s for Louis Fréchette, Poet Laureate of Canada:

“M.T. never was so funny as this time. The perfect art of a certain kind of story telling will die with him. No one beside can ever equal him, I am sure” [Andrews 92].

January 13 Monday – Sam had an unwelcome American visitor who, in effect, was a beggar. the visit, along with a Jan. 4 article from the Hartford Courant, led Sam to write a long letter to the Courant editor on the problem of beggars [MTNJ 2: 260]. (see Feb. 2 entry.)

January 14 Tuesday – the Clemenses saw a Munich production of François Adrien Boieldieu’s La Dame Blanche, a popular light opera, partly based on Sir Walter Scott’s novels The Monastery and Guy Mannering. Sam noted: “not noise, but music” [MTNJ 2: 261].  

January 17 Friday – William Roling Romoli wrote from his gallery in Florence, Italy to advise that the “two frames you ordered of me the 26th October 1878 are now quite ready to deliver to my expeditioners…to forward to Liverpool according to the directions you left me” [MTP].

January 19 Sunday – Livy and Sam wrote from Munich to Olivia Lewis Langdon. Livy wrote of her homesickness, of spending too much money in Italy, of buying furniture in Florence and of the children. Sam wrote:

January 21 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Munich to Howells. he praised Howells’ The Lady of Aroostook., and made this observation:

January 23 Thursday – Sam wrote from Munich to Joe Twichell. He had lost the address for Frank and Elisha Bliss, so asked Joe to communicate with them about the delays in his book. He didn’t want to “attempt any more prophesies as to the date of completion of the book.” Sam had found his lost notebook, and worked daily when no one in the family was sick. He calculated that he’d torn up 400 pages and had about 900 that he liked, so was half done.

January 25 Saturday – Sam’s notebook:

The Mother of the King, 55 or 60, was out walking in the street, to-day, a maid of honor walking beside her, the two talking zealously, 2 vast footmen in blue liveries walking behind them—everybody, who came along, either in the street or on the sidewalk, took off hats & bowed—little boys, gentlemen, ladies, soldiers, cabmen—everybody—& the queen saw every bow & bowed in return, & still kept her end of the conversation [MTNJ 2: 263].

January 26 Sunday – Sam wrote from Munich to Joe Twichell after receiving his letter at breakfast (evidently there was Sunday mail delivery in Germany). Sam wrote of not being able to sleep the night before. So he dressed in the dark and then crawled around trying to find a missing sock.