January 15 Tuesday – H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam, letter not extant but mentioned in Jan. 29 to Rogers.

January 16 Wednesday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris, Sam responded to Irving Bacheller of Bachellor & Johnson Syndicate, also known as The New York Press Syndicate.

I shall be too busy for the next two or three months to undertake that most difficult & bothersome thing, a short story…. In my experience it costs less work to write a big book…than it does to write a little story.

January 17 Thursday – H.H. Rogers also wrote to Sam, letter not extant but mentioned in Feb. 8 to Rogers; disclosed a $200 check received in New York from Frank Bliss.

January 18 Friday – Livy wrote to Annie Trumbull, a fragment of which survives:

“…of the fact that I was greatly embarrassed by her manner and at my wit’s ends as to how to meet it. I rather liked the woman. / I want very much to know how you are this winter” [MTP].

January 19 Saturday – The Athenaeum, No. 3508 p.83-4 briefly reviewed PW: “The story in itself Is not much credit to Mark Twain’s skill as a novelist,” and few of the characters are striking, but “If the preface (with its tasteless humor) be skipped, the book well repays reading just for the really excellent picture of Roxana” [Tenney 24].

January 20 Sunday – The New York Times, p.3, ran a short excerpt from Sam’s N.A.R. article about Bourget:

January 21 Monday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

Yours of the 8th is received.

That is the very thing. If you will write that sort of a letter to [Bram] Stoker, I’ll be very glad, and will keep diligently aloof myself.

January 23 Wednesday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris Sam wrote to John D. Adams of the Century Co. enclosing a “few alterations” to a JA excerpt and asking for proofs of the rest of the parts; he hadn’t thought it necessary but admitted that was a mistake and was glad that Henry M. Alden “had that inspiration” [MTP].

January 26 Saturday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris, Sam received H.H. Rogers’ Jan. 15 letter. He would respond on Jan. 29.

January 27 Sunday – The New York Times, p.27, “Mark Twain’s New Volume” praised the illustrations in the book version of Pudd’nhead Wilson, and the Comedy Those Extraordinary Twins, published on Nov. 28, 1894. The Century installments were illustrated by Louis Loeb. Frank Bliss hired two little-known illustrators for the book, F.M. Senior and C.H. Warren, who came up with 432 drawings to be used in the margins [1996 Oxford ed.

January 29 Tuesday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

Your felicitous and delightful letter of the 15th [not extant] arrived three days ago and brought great pleasure into the house. I note what you say about helping me with your heart and head and pocket in the matter of the uniform edition; and I shall surely call on the first two gratefully; and if I find I can’t pull through without invading the third, why then I’ll attack that if the edition promises to justify such conduct.

February – As early as Feb. 3 in a letter to Rogers, Sam was planning and discussing a world tour. The plans evolved over the spring and were not finalized until late May, with J.B. Pond acting as manager for the North American leg and Robert Sparrow Smythe of Melbourne handling the down-under leg. After the death of Susy, Clara Clemens recalled her father saying to her mother:

February 1 Friday – Andrew Chatto sent Sam the London address of Max O’Rell (Paul Blouët) and advised that even though Max was in America, letters sent would be forwarded. Chatto acknowledged receipt of the American edition of PW and was sorry he did not have time to include the Twins story in their edition, but hoped to use it “before long” [MTP].

February 2 Saturday – Sam & Livy’s 25th Wedding Anniversary. At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris, Sam gave Livy a new five-franc piece that she would frame, which symbolized their reduced financial condition. “Nobody else put up anything, all the family but me being poor” [Feb. 3 to Rogers]. Sam dedicated a copy of JA to Livy:

1870 TO MY WIFE 1895 
OLIVIA LANGDON CLEMENS 

February 3 Sunday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, announcing that the day before was their silver wedding anniversary. “About the end of January” Sam had written to Henry M. Stanley asking for the name of Stanley’s lecture agent (Robert Sparrow Smythe) in Melbourne [Feb. 12 to Rogers] about a possible world tour.

February 7 Thursday – In Paris Sam booked passage on the S.S. New York for Feb. 23 as planned, with a return for Mar. 27. He also engaged passage for the entire family in the same ship for May 18. In the evening Sam completed revisions on JA [Feb. 8 to Rogers]. Note: the family left on May 11, unsure for some time which date they could make.

February 8 Friday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris Sam began a letter to H.H. Rogers that he finished on Feb. 9.

Yours of Jan 17 has just arrived, in which you mention $200 check received from American Pub. Co. …I think this $200 must be part of the $1,500 which he was to pay for “Those Extraordinary Twins.”

The thing has happened which was bound to happen. Bliss got hold of Pudd’nhead so late that he lost the holiday trade; consequently achieved no sale.

February 9 Saturday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris, Sam finished his Feb. 8 letter to H.H. Rogers adding a PS. He confided that the idea of “dumping two of our girls” on Sue Crane was one Livy didn’t want anyone to know, since she needed to talk to Sue first. Since Sue and Dr. Rice were great friends, Sam and Livy were concerned Rice might mention the idea to her before Livy had the chance to broach it.

February 12 Tuesday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

February 14 Thursday – An autographed theatre program for the Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor 17 Rue St., Florentin, Paris, France was auctioned by Brunk Auctions, Asheville, N. Carolina on eBay on Jan. 8, 2006 (Item 6590792883). The program advertised “Fifteen Minutes with Mark Twain.” The content of those minutes was not given, but there were two parts of the program, the first with six performances and the second with seven. Sam was first up on the second part, and signed “Truly Yours Mark Twain” under his listing.

February 15 Friday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris, Sam wrote to Elizabeth H. Colt, commenting on the 52 page A Memorial to Caldwell Hart Colt: 1858-1894. “Colly” Colt, her son, died on Jan. 21, 1894.

February 20 Wednesday – Frederick Douglass, American ex-slave and author, friend of the Langdon family, died of a heart attack or stroke in Washington D.C. Sam met Douglass in 1869 while lecturing in Rhode Island, and wrote to Livy that Douglass had “a grand face.” See Dec. 15, 1869 and other entries in Vol. I.

February 22 Friday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris, Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore, heading the letter, “Birthington’s Washday/95”. Sam supposed that John and Alice Day had taken the Clemens house in Hartford for rent because Sam had received no cable otherwise from Day.

In three hours I leave for Havre & New York.

February 23 Saturday – The S.S. New York sailed from Havre, France with Sam aboard. The ship stopped in Southampton and sailed for New York. MTHHR, p.132 offers the following exposition of this trip back to the US:

February 26 Tuesday – In Hartford attorney Henry C. Robinson, in the matter of renting the Clemenses Hartford house, wrote a follow up letter to his Feb. 15 to John C. Day, stating that Day, in Robinson’s judgment, wouldn’t want to rent the barn, so that $800 would be sufficient rent for the six-month period in question [Stowe-Day Library; 1981 copy from Tenney].