May 17 Saturday – Livy and Sam wrote onboard the SS Batavia to Olivia Lewis Langdon. The ship pulled away from the New York harbor in the morning. Livy wrote that Mrs. Fairbanks had just left them and that Livy’s friend Fidele Brooks also visited. Accompanying the party was Samuel C. Thompson, who was to be Sam’s secretary to take dictation using the method of shorthand he’d been teaching.
May 19 Monday – The New York Supreme Court Chief Justice George L. Ingraham (1847-1930) granted Clemens a temporary injunction against Benjamin J. Such [MTL 5: 370n5]. Sam’s attorney was Simon Sterne [NY Times, June 11, 1873 p.2].
May 27 Tuesday – The Batavia docked at Liverpool on May 27 and the Clemens party stayed one night at Captain John and Mrs. Mouland’s home in Linacre, just north of Liverpool [MTL 5: 370-1].
May 28 Wednesday – The travelers left Liverpool at 11:30 AM on the train for London. They arrived there about 5:30, and took rooms at Edward’s Royal Cambridge Hotel in Hanover Square. Samuel Thompson “took lodging in a cheaper locality near by” [MTL 5: 371]. Thompson wrote later in his unpublished autobiography:
May 29 Thursday – Sometime from this day until as late as Sunday, June 15, Sam left his card and letter (with “pages of horse-play…closing with a dinner invitation”) for Henry Watterson, the editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, who had arrived in England about a week before the Clemens party. Watterson was Sam’s second cousin by marriage [MTL 5: 372].
May 31 Saturday – Livy wrote in her diary: “Susy’s lower gums are very much swollen and she is a little worried today” [Salsbury 20].
June – Sam dictated a notebook entry to a stenographer: “Work upon Persia by a representative of Great Britain at the court of Teheran. Title something like Ali Baba in Arabian Nights.” Sam was reaching for the name of James Justinian Morier’s (1780?-1849) The Adventures of Hajji Baba, of Ispahan, 3 vols (1824) [Gribben 485].
June 1 or 2 Monday – Sam mailed a postcard from The Edwards’ Hotel, London to Henry Lee, Blackfriars Road SE, to inform him of his arrival [MTL 5: 374].
June 9 Monday – Sam wrote from Edwards’ Hotel, George Street, Hanover Square, accepting a dinner invitation from Kate Field and her London hostess, Lady Katherine Dilke (d.1874). Sam was asked to name the day and time; he chose Wednesday, June 11 at 5 PM [MTL 5: 375].
June 10 Tuesday – Sam and Samuel C. Thompson attended the Tichborne trial. Arthur Orton, a cockney butcher was on trial for perjury. Orton claimed to be Roger Charles Tichborne, heir to the Tichborne estate [MTNJ 1: 527n2]. This sort of case was Sam’s meat and he recollected this case in Following the Equator (Ch.
June 11 Wednesday – Sam wrote from the Edwards’ Hotel to Joaquin Miller (Cincinnatus Hiene (or Hiner) Miller) (1839/41-1913) in London. Miller had been active in the literary scene in the 1860s. His poetry made Miller a celebrity in England.
June 12 Thursday – A New York court made the May 19 temporary injunction against Benjamin Such permanent [MTL 5: 370n5; N.Y. Times, June 12, 1873 p.2].
Thompson wrote notes about the party’s trip to the Ascot races with a short side trip to Bushy Park [MTNJ 1: 528].
June 13 Friday – Joaquin Miller brought an unidentified “literary friend” to meet Sam. They then paid respects to Houghton. Samuel Thompson recalled, “Lord Houghton evidently enjoyed Joaquin Miller, and as Clemens drawled along in his grumpy way I have seen Lord Houghton sit on the sofa and shake with laughter till the tears rolled down his face” [MTL 5: 378n3 citing Thompson, p.94].
June 14 Saturday – Sam called on Joaquin Miller and they went to the Savage Club [MTL 5: 378n3]. Sam’s “letter” to Josh Billings ran in Street and Smith’s New York Weekly [The Twainian, Feb. 1944 p1]. (See Mar. 1873 entry).
John Camden Hotten (1832-1873), unauthorized publisher of many of Mark Twain’s sketches, died in London [Welland 28].
June 15 Sunday – Sam wrote from the Edwards’ Hotel to the American consul general in London, Adam Badeau (1831-1895). Sam sent his and Livy’s regrets they’d been unable to visit due to Livy being “very greatly fatigued because of sight-seeing” [MTL 5: 382]. Notes: Badeau had been on General Sherman’s staff during the Civil War, and the military secretary for General Grant&n
June 17 Tuesday – Sam and his secretary Thompson left London and crossed over the channel to Ostend, Belgium to cover the visit of the Shah of Persia, Nasr-ed-Din, the first leader of his country to visit Europe. Sam stayed overnight in Ostend.
June 18 Wednesday – Sam and Thompson returned from Ostend on the H.M.S. Lively. The pair traveled with some of the Shah’s family and several journalists who had accompanied the Shah on the train from Brussels [MTL 5: 384n1]. Once back in London, Sam wrote to Elisha Bliss that he had
June 19 Thursday – Sam wrote from Edwards’ Hotel in London to George Fitzgibbon. His Shah letters, and the move to Langham Hotel the following Wednesday were among the reasons Sam gave for not being able to accompany Fitz to a session of Parliament, which Fitz reported on for the Darlington Northern Echo [MTL 5: 385].
June 22 Sunday – The Clemens family and Kate Field dined at the Dilkes [MTL 5: 375n1]. Kate Field, in a letter to the New York Tribune, wrote of the evening:
June 23 Monday – From Livy’s diary:
Little Susy is very well indeed, she creeps all about the room, eats meat and potato for her breakfast every morning and is fat and hearty as possible—Nellie takes care of her now nights. I am out so much that I need my unbroken sleep [Salsbury 20].
June 24 Tuesday – Sam was granted patent number 140,245 for his “Improvement in Scrap-Books.” The scrapbooks were manufactured but sales didn’t take place until 1877 and were handled by Sam’s New York friend, Dan Slote. This proved to be Sam’s only profitable patent [MTL 5: 145n4]. Note: Aug. 27, 1965 letter from General Services Admin.
June 25 Wednesday – Sam and entourage moved to rooms at the Langham Hotel in Portland Place, where a billiards room was available [MTL 5: 372]. “It was a period of continuous honor and entertainment. If Mark Twain had been a lion on his first visit, he was little less than royalty now.
June 26 Thursday – Clara Spaulding left the Clemens family with her mother to tour Europe for six weeks. She returned on Aug. 9 [MTL 5: 404n1].
June 28 Saturday – Sam wrote from the Langham to William Stirling-Maxwell (1818-1878) of London, who had invited Sam to visit the Cosmopolitan Club. The membership included: Lord Houghton, John Motley (1814-1877), Joaquin Miller, Thomas Hughes, Robert Browning, and Anthony Trollope [MTL 5: 391-2].
June 29 Sunday – Sam wrote from London to Joseph Twichell. Livy added a note at the end. A man named Chew had made an agreement to share a story that Sam might publish. Sam liked the story but waited for Chew to send details, it seems the “story” had already been printed. For some reason Chew felt he was owed money when Sam refused to plagiarize. Sam thought different.