August 31 Thursday
Autumn – Sam wrote a piece titled, “A Simplified Alphabet” in response to the simplified spelling movement in the United States. It began:
September – Sam’s article, “Concerning the Jews” first ran in the Sept. issue of Harper’s . It was collected in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories (1900) and How to Tell a Story, and Other Essays (1903); a postscript was added to the essay in the English edition of the former as well as later American editions beginning in 1902. See Sept. 15 to Simon Wolf, with notes.
September 1 Friday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to Poultney Bigelow.
We are progressing handsomely, and are greatly obliged to you for putting us on the track. I suppose you will be returning to London soon. We shall reach there the last day of this month and may remain till mid-winter or longer. Then I will powerfully discourage the weekly newspaper project unless you can prove that the wear and tear of it will not destroy your health [MTP].
September 3 Sunday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam replied to T. Douglas Murray (incoming not extant).
Yes, it does indeed remind one of the Rennes trial. I had a paragraph in my Introduction, particularising the twin-resemblances, & suggesting that French character has not improved in five centuries, but Mrs. Clemens knocked it out. And quite right: it was not the place for it. …
September 4 Monday – Chatto & Windus wrote to Sam that Bliss thought the cost of the 512 deluxe edition would “…be 5 cents a volume more for 500 sets than he reckoned for 1000…at these rates each 12/6 volume should bring you in 9/6” [MTP].
September 5 Tuesday – The New York Times, p. 1 speculated:
MARK TWAIN’S FUTURE PLANS.
Humorist Will Pass Winter at Princeton, and May Settle There.
Special to The New York Times.
September 6 Wednesday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to Joe Twichell.
September 7 Thursday – In Sanna, Sweden Livy replied for Sam to Chatto & Windus (their incoming letter not extant) about the special English issue of the Uniform Edition:
He asks me to say that he shall not be able to send out the prospectus, as he could not have the face to suggest to his friends to buy his books. It may be English but it is quite un-American to advertize oneself in this way [MTP].
September 8 Friday – An anonymous article, “An American Defender of the Faith,” ran in The Jewish Chronicle (London), p.11. Tenney: “Excerpts from ‘Concerning the Jews; editorial commentary is brief and descriptive [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Fifth Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1981 p. 164]. From Tenney’s Bibliographic Issue #4: “‘An article by Mark Twain in the March number (1899) of Harper’s Magazine attracted many letters from readers asking what in the writer’s opinion were the causes of anti-Semitism.
September 9 Saturday – The New York Times, p.BR 600, ran an article about Twain and Kipling.
MARK TWAIN ON RUDYARD KIPLING
September 12 Tuesday – Laurence Hutton wrote from Princeton, NJ to Sam.
Dear Marcus / Here we are again. This is what the Sun says about us. If you don’t mind it, I don’t. But, I wouldn’t accept your death, Mark, as a gift.
I hope your part of the statement is true. Tell us.
I wrote you a few days ago from Paris. We expect to be settled here—at the Inn—in a couple of weeks.
And to be “At Home” in the New House by Thanksgiving time. Come. / Love …. [MTP].
September 14 Thursday – Henry M. Alden for Harper & Brothers wrote to Sam to suggest they would publish two additional volumes: a book of stories, with “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” as its “splendid pièce de résistance,” and a book of articles [MTHHR 414n3].
September 15 Friday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam began a letter to Major H.F. Gordon Forbes, author, living at this time in Boulogne. (Sam added a PS on Sept. 23.) Forbes’ letter had taken over three months to reach Sam, but from postmarks where the delay was Sam could not tell. He informed Forbes he would be in Sanna until Sept. 27 and at the Queen Anne Mansions for the winter starting Sept. 30.
September 16 Saturday – Sam inscribed a card later sold in a copy of HF to an unidentified person:
“Truly Yours, Mark Twain, Sanna, Sweden, Sept. 16, 99” [MTP: Swann Galleries catalogs, 30 Sept. 1948, Item 313].
September 17 Sunday – In Sanna, Sweden, Livy wrote to Chatto & Windus, asking they send her at their “earliest convenience” a copy of JA [MTP].
September 18 Monday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to Mai Rogers Coe, now in London at the Carlton Hotel.
It was a great pleasure to get your note [not extant] this morning & know that you were again within reaching distance of us. Also that you have found Harry & have got him under control. I hope you are not intending to sail before we reach London—which will be the afternoon or evening of Sept. 30. …
September 19 Tuesday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, asking them to “send no more postal matter after Sept. 24th / Nor the ‘Chronicle’—it can go to the Queen Anne Mansions” [MTP]. Note: postcard postmarked this date, possibly written earlier.
September 21 Thursday – The New York Times, p.5 reported that Mark Twain had canceled arrangements to stay in Princeton, N.J., and would spend the winter in London.
September 22 Friday – H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam, the letter not extant but referred to in Sam’s Oct. 4 reply.
September 23 Saturday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam added a PS to his Sept. 15 to H.F. Gordon Forbes: “P.S.—8 days later—Sept. 23.
I learn this morning from London, in answer to my inquiries, that you are still at Boulogne—so I need not have waited” [MTP].
September 24 Sunday– In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to Andrew Chatto, asking him to reach Madame Dreyfus, suggesting she see Kellgren to “bring back health & strength to her husband.” Sam claimed to have spent 20 minutes each morning for the past ten weeks in Dr. Jonas Henrick Kellgren’s “work-room watching him perform upon his patients,” and that he made some 7,000 words of notes. He told of Nathaniel Rothshchild, the daughter of Mr.
September 26 Tuesday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to William Dean Howells, advising him to learn his lectures by heart, and describing “a trick” he learned in Vienna, by accident—to carry a book and use it to talk with, gesture with and making it seem he was not reading it. Sam also had read the recent installment of Howells’ Their Silver Wedding Journey in Harper’s, which he thought “delicious— every word of it. You haven’t lost any of your splendid art” [MTHL 2: 705-6].
September 27 Wednesday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers. On the left corner of the envelope: “Dear Mr. Rogers: Won’t you please examine & correct the enclosed & send it to Gilder & ask him to cable?” [MTP; not in MTHHR]. Note: the enclosed is not known.
Jonas Henrick Kellgren Osteopath billed Sam £300.6.0 for “treatment board and lodging to the 27 Sept. inclusive” [1899 Financial file MTP].
September 28 Thursday – The Clemens family likely spent the day in Götenburg.
September 29 Friday – The Clemens family left Götenburg by ship to London.