Eight Atlantic Ocean Crossings: DBD

August 19 Sunday – Sam was en route aboard the American Line S.S. Paris for Southampton. The fourth day at sea the Paris made 430 miles distance. In the evening, Rev. A.J.F. Behrends gave a brief sermon in the grand saloon [Ibid.]. Sam may have attended.

August 2 Thursday – Sam was in Hartford visiting old friends and staying with the Whitmores. He mentioned seeing Susy Warner on this day in his Aug. 3 to daughter Clara. Susy Warner “praised Mrs. Wilson’s character & her abilities as teacher & composer.” Clara was staying with Mrs. Wilson in Canton of Uri, Switzerland, and planned to teach there with her after the family returned to America.

August 20 Monday – Sam was en route aboard the American Line S.S. Paris for Southampton. The fifth day at sea the Paris made 455 miles distance [Ibid.]. The Brooklyn Eagle article (Sept. 9, 1894 p.5 “A Mid-Ocean Letter”) wrote up a charity concert event that included a reading by Sam:

August 21 Tuesday – Sam was en route aboard the American Line S.S. Paris for Southampton. The sixth day at sea the Paris made 447 miles distance [Ibid.]

…an entertainment was given in the second cabin, consisting of songs, recitations, an illusion act and minstrel performance, realizing about $25 for the benefit of a steward, who met with an accident on Sunday last [Aug. 19]. Eighty dollars in addition was raised for him among the first cabin passengers [Ibid.]

August 22 Wednesday – At 4 p.m., the S.S. Paris docked at Southampton. The seventh day at sea the Paris made 441 miles distance, within 67 miles to Southampton [Brooklyn Eagle, Sept. 9, 1894 p.5 “A Mid-Ocean Letter”].

H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam, the letter not extant, but mentioned in Sam’s Sept. 2 to Rogers.

August 23 Thursday † – Sam reached Etretat, France on the Normandy coast by this day, reuniting with his family [Sept. 2-3 to Rogers].

Mrs. James French-King’s article, “Character Reading of Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain),” ran in Freedom, a weekly Boston paper, p.3. This was a journal devoted to “Mental Science” [Tenney, ALR supplement to the Reference Guide (Autumn, 1980) 172].

August 24 Friday – Harper & Brothers wrote to Sam (the letter is not extant but is mentioned in Sam’s Sept. 9 to Rogers) that they’d sent a typed copy of JA, express paid. Sam still had not received the MS itself by Sept. 9.

Rogers signed a contract for Livy with Frank Bliss for the publication of PW by the American Publishing Co. [MTHHR 71-2].

August 25 Saturday – In Etretat, France Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers:

I find the Madam ever so much better in health and strength; but disappointed, for she hoped you and Mrs. Duff would come and let her take care of you as she proposed; but I told her I didn’t get the letter, which was true. But I don’t see how she would take care of anybody in this little Chalet des Abris, which is such an incredibly small coop that the family can’t find room to sleep without hanging their legs out of the windows.

August 26 Sunday – In Etretat, France Sam worked this day and the next on an unspecified magazine article, which he did not finish.

August 27 Monday – Chatto & Windus wrote to Sam about delays in receiving a duplicate set of illustrations to use in PW [MTP].

August 28 Tuesday – In Etretat, France Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, concerned about the mix-up in the publication date for PW. Publication had to be coordinated between England and the US to ensure copyright.

Oh, my God, this is a state of things! Mr. Hall, & the Assignee [Bainbridge Colby] & everybody else knew, away back yonder the last of April, & you ought of course to have been told that at the time.

August 3 Friday – The North American Review published the essay, “In Defense of Harriet Shelley” in July–Sept.

In New York at the Players Club Sam answered a letter (not extant) from daughter Clara.

You dear old Black Spider! how glad I was to get your letter an hour or two ago. I was able to read it, too — which is a marvel.

August 4 Saturday – Sam stayed with the Harry Harper family on the Long Island shore.

Harry Harper is open & honest & frank; & was not afraid to tell me (after I said I couldn’t quite afford to let the book [JA] go at the terms offered,) that he was charmed with the book & that Alden would be deeply disappointed if it was allowed to slip out of his hands.

August 5 Sunday – A few minutes after returning from Long Island, Sam wrote to Livy about going after his JA MS on Friday afternoon and leaving with Harry Harper for a two-day visit. No letter from her awaited him. Sam explained that he needed to be accessible to H.H. Rogers, for Urban H.

August 6 Monday – Harper & Brothers wrote to Sam agreeing to amend the contract for JA with the increased royalty from the time they used his real name as author [MTP].

August 7 Tuesday – In New York on Players Club stationery, Sam wrote a paragraph to his brother Orion in Keokuk, Iowa, asking his forgiveness for losing his temper.

…I was infernally provoked to reflect that I had written 200 letters trying to settle that picayune trade & then hadn’t accomplished it.

August 8 Wednesday – In New York at the Players Club, Sam wrote a letter to daughter Susy in Etretat, France. This morning he’d gone to see a palmreader, a young man, 26-years-old, named Cheiro (1866-1936), one of the most colorful and famous occult figures of his day. He was a clairvoyant who used palmistry, astrology, and Chaldean numerology, to predict world events, some of which were frighteningly accurate.

August 9 Thursday – In New York at H.H. Rogers’ office, Sam wrote to Livy an hour before a scheduled meeting with the lawyers and the assignee in the Webster & Co. bankruptcy case.

December 10 Monday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris, Sam wrote to Henry M. Alden of Harper & Brothers asking to see his proofs of JA, after discovering he’d made “two or three mistakes.” 

December 11 Tuesday – Not allowed to go out except on dry days, which were absent for the next week, Sam worked again on JA, Book III. On this day he wrote 1,300 words [Dec. 16 to Rogers].

December 12 Wednesday – Sam wrote 2,600 words on JA, Book III [Dec. 16 to Rogers].

December 13 Thursday – Sam wrote 2,100 words on JA, Book III [Dec. 16 to Rogers]. A review of PW by the London Chronicle, p.3:

There is in this volume a good deal of Mark Twain at his best, and not a little of Mark Twain at his worst. The story is one of the strangest compounds of strength and artificiality we have read for many a day. Pathos and bathos, humour and twaddle, are thrown together in a way that is nothing less than amazing [Budd, Contemporary Reviews 360].

December 14 Friday – Sam wrote 2,000 words on JA, Book III [Dec. 16 to Rogers].

December 15 Saturday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris, Sam wrote to his English publisher, Andrew Chatto, asking to see him on business the “very first time” he came to Paris. Sam asked for three copies of his books right away for daughter Jean, who wanted to give them for Christmas presents. Sam also noted that “a couple of years ago…you charged me full retail rates for my own books, & it didn’t seem a bit right.” If he would “modify reasonably,” then consider the three books an order.

December 16 Sunday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris, Sam began a letter to H.H. Rogers, which he finished on Dec. 17, having “started the mill again 6 days ago,” on his JA manuscript, Book III. He’d written a total of 11,800 words, including “this Sabbath evening” of 2,000 words. He saw that Book III would be as long as Book I and twice as long as Book II, which he’d written in Etretat, and that the entire work would be two full volumes in the proposed Uniform Edition.