May 7 Monday – In his May 8 to Rogers, Sam wrote of this evening:
I invited myself out to dinner last night [May 7], & I’ve got the brooch & a letter for Mrs. Duff. I invited Rice to come out & play billiards, & no doubt he would have come if he hasn’t said he would. However, I took it out of Harry [Rogers’ son] & we didn’t need the doctor [MTP].
May 8 Tuesday – In New York at noon Sam wrote to Henry H. Rogers, who was on a trip to W. Virginia. Sam headed the letter with Rogers’ office address:
Enjoy your trip; be perfectly tranquil concerning this office. Miss Harrison & I are running its affairs in the most admirable way. I am going up, presently, to eat your luncheon for you, for you need to keep well nourished when on a long trip, & I don’t think much of the West Virginian cuisine.
May 9 Wednesday – Sam sailed again for Southampton, England in the S.S. New York [Brooklyn Eagle, p.4 “Personal Mention”; MTHHR 24]. Sometime during the voyage, which ended on May 16, Sam wrote a thank you note to an unidentified person:
Thank you cordially for your superb performance. / Sincerely Yours / Mark Twain / At Sea, May/94 [MTP].
May 10 Thursday – Sam was en route on the S.S. New York for Southampton, London and Paris.
The New York Times, p.9 ran an update on the Webster & Co. assignment:
CHARLES L. WEBSTER & CO.’S AFFAIRS.
— — —
The Liabilities Placed at About $80,000 —
“Mark Twain” Sails for Europe.
May 11 Friday – Sam was en route on the S.S. New York for Southampton, London and Paris. In his May 16 to Livy he wrote:
It seems an age since I left New York; & yet I have been at work a large part of the time, & work obliterates time more effectively than anything except sleep [MTP].
May 12 Saturday – Sam was en route on the S.S. New York for Southampton, London and Paris and spent a “large part of the time” writing “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses,” and possibly other pieces.
May 13 Sunday – Sam was en route on the S.S. New York for Southampton, London and Paris and spent a “large part of the time” writing “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses,” and possibly other pieces.
May 14 Monday – Sam was en route on the S.S. New York for Southampton, London and Paris and spent a “large part of the time” writing “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses,” and possibly other pieces. A large meteor shower was visible in France.
May 15 Tuesday – Sam was en route on the S.S. New York for Southampton, London and Paris and spent a “large part of the time” writing “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses,” and possibly other pieces.
May 16 Wednesday – Sam was en route on the S.S. New York for Southampton, London and Paris. He wrote to Livy.
Livy darling, I shall reach London this evening, no doubt; & then I shall seem very close to you & those others. It makes me joyful; & pretty impatient, too. The voyage makes a long, long interval, & conspicuously blank one, on account of the absence of letters from you. …
May 17 Thursday – In London Mark Twain gave the speech of the evening at a dinner by Poultney Bigelow for the officers of the US cruiser Chicago. The N.Y. Times, p.5 “Her Troops” reported the dinner and Sam’s speech but did not report its content.
Dr. Halstead Boyland wrote to Sam, inviting him and Livy for dinner on May 26 [MTP].
May 18 Friday – Sam spent two days in London. Mary Anderson’s agent offered him £2,000 to lecture ten nights in London, but he declined because the season was over in three weeks and there’d be no time to advertise. He promised to consider a fall or winter engagement including a few two-night stands in other cities. He tried to locate Rogers’ daughters at the Brown Hotel, Mrs. Cara Rogers Duff and May Rogers, in order to deliver a letter sent them by Mrs.
May 19 Saturday – Sam left London and traveled to Paris, where he joined his family at the Hotel Brighton.
Saturday Review (London) LXXVII, p.535-6 printed a brief summary of Tom Sawyer Abroad, with a few critical remarks, calling the humor “genuine and characteristic, but it is thin.” The Review condemned the ending: “anything more flat and unprofitable or more shabby to the reader was never devised” [Tenney 22].
May 20 Sunday – Sam and Livy examined a cottage in Etretat, France and rented it for the summer [May 22 to Rogers].
May 21 Monday – Abbie Gifford Rogers, wife of H.H. Rogers, died. Sam wrote of her last days on July 17 to Livy. He would get the news on May 31. Dias writes,
“On May 21, 1894, Rogers’ wife, Abbie, died after undergoing surgery in New York. She had for days been suffering intolerable pain (from an unsuspected tumor). Consequently, she submitted gladly to the operation. After the surgery, however, she began to sink and never rallied” [MT Letters to Rogers Family 14].
May 22 Tuesday – In Paris at the Hotel Brighton Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers. He told about trying to chase down Rogers’ two daughters, Mrs. Duff and Miss May, who had gone to Switzerland. He wrote about his two-day stopover in London and his offer from Mary Anderson’s agent to speak ten nights for two thousand pounds. Then he related the family’s plans and his forecasted return:
May 24 Thursday – Frederick Blackwood (1st Marquis of Dufferin) wrote to Sam at the Hotel Brighton:
My dear Mr. Clemens / How very kind of you to have remembered my request. I am indeed most grateful especially for the charming autograph inscription which the book contains. Very shortly we are having a garden party, and I hope you will still be in Paris when it takes place.” Sam wrote on the envelope, “Lord Dufferin” [MTP].
May 25 Friday – In Paris Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, wondering if the two Rogers girls had gone home, because there was no sign of them and they were not at the Hotel Victoria in London. He repeated that he would take the family to Aix-les-Bains toward the end of June, then sail back from Southampton. If by chance the newest Paige typesetter was completed, would Rogers please cable him in care of Drexel, Paris.
May 26 Saturday – The Athenaeum, No. 3474 p.676 printed a brief review of Tom Sawyer Abroad. Tenney quotes: “A dull book, and ‘a grievous disappointment to admirers of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and of his friend Huckleberry Finn…it is a pity that [MT] should squander himself on such a book as this’” [22].
May 30 Wednesday – In Paris, Sam wrote a short note to Robert Underwood Johnson:
My dear Johnson: I reminded Dr. Boyland the other day to forward his MS. to you (about the Commune I think it is) and he said he would. It is the MS. I spoke to you about. Yours in a hell of a hurry. S.L. Clemens [MTP: Am. Art Catalog, Feb. 17, 1926, Item 97]. Note: Dr. Halstead Boyland; “the other day” may have been in London or since in Paris.
May 31 Thursday – In Paris Sam wrote to Henry H. Rogers, minutes after hearing from his secretary, Katharine I. Harrison, of the death of Abbie Gifford Rogers (Mrs. Rogers).
June – The final serial segment of Pudd’nhead Wilson ran in the Century, and was called “resplendent as ever in faultless typography and unsurpassed engravings” by the N.Y. Times, June 2, p.3 “New Publications”. Sam was anxious to get the book published.
Sam inscribed a photograph of himself to Mrs. Hapgood: To Mrs. Hapgood / With the kindest regards of / S.L. Clemens. / June 1894 [MTP].
June 1 Friday – In Paris, France Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall.
Mrs. Clemens & I have read your letter & are sincerely sorry for your hard situation. I wish I could make it better; I certainly would if I could. But the whole business being now in the hands of the creditors, I have no authority & can do nothing.
If the assignment was a put-up job I knew nothing of it, & never in the least suspected it.
June 2 Saturday – H.H. Rogers wrote again to Sam, relating a minor dust-up with James W. Paige over signing patents. Paige had delayed signing, arguing he was not quite prepared to take out foreign patents.
June 5 Tuesday – Chatto & Windus wrote to Sam that they’d been unable to secure a copy of Lownsbury’s Life of James Fenimore Cooper, but they would send for one “from the other side without delay” and hoped he would call on them when in London [MTP].