July 17 Thursday — Harper & Brothers, sent a royalty statement to Mrs. Clemens totaling $5,358.24 due on Nov. 1, 1902 [MTP]. Sam wrote on the env. “Statement to July ’02. (not including sets) $5,400. Preserve”; this was mailed July 17 but dated June 30.
York Harbor DBD
July 18 Friday – In York Harbor, Sam wrote to an unidentified person. The Camperdown Chronicle of Victoria, Australia, p.5, carried this article, which contains Sam’s reply to a gentleman who had discovered a library in Venice, Italy containing thousands of books yet only one in English, LM.
July 19 Saturday – Speaker Magazine, p. 441-2 , ran a review of “A Double Barrelled Detective Story.” Tenney: “Chiefly descriptive: ‘…shows Mark Twain’s weaknesses as well as his strengths, but at its worst is a story that ought not to be missed’” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Third Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1979 p. 187].
July 23 Wednesday – Frank Bliss wrote to Sam, that he had to come home (Hartford) “to attend to some matters, but I send this note to let you know that I got that option alright & will see you in course of a couple of days in regard to [it]” [MTP].
American Publishing Co. sent a draft to Livy for $7,364.36, which included $793.35 for sales of old edtions, $4,101.56 for Underwood sets edition, $2,500 colected on sales of “fine limited edtions”—all less $30.55 on books charged [MTP].
July 24 Thursday – Frederick A. Duneka wrote to Sam, enclosing a check for $4,669.20 on the six-book set sold up to June 30, with projected $11,000 additional royalties due Dec. 31, making the total for 1902 of about $16,565.60 [MTP].
July 25 Friday – Livy wrote a short note to Frank Bliss: “The semi-yearly statement and the check for seventy three hundred and sixty four & 36/100 dollars is safely rec’d.Thank you for it” [MTP].
July 26 Saturday – Jean Clemens’ 22nd birthday.
July 27 Sunday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Paul Kester in Accotiuk, Va..
I will refer you to Mr. Erlanger and Miss Marbury. I have told Mr. [Abraham] Erlanger that I would not sanction a Tom Sawyer play until after the staging of Huck Finn (Nov. 2/02) & not then without talking with him about it first. I mention Miss Marbury because she is my agent, & such matters properly pass through her hands [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Klaw & Erlanger, dramatic agents.
July 28 Monday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.
I’m enclosing the check but not the interest. I don’t ever pay interest until I have examined into a thing & ascertained whether there is a legal way of avoiding it or not. I have generally found this to be a good business method.
July 29 Tuesday – In Kittery Point, Maine, William Dean Howells wrote to Sam, jokingly calling him:
Dear Mr. President: / I am sorry that the poem [Howell’s poem, “The Mother” to be published in Harper’s for Dec. 1902] has gone to Harper’s Magazine. If it comes back, either in proof or MS. it shall be sent to Mrs. Roosevelt [Livy] promptly.
This will be handed to you by my son, who will now be satisfied with the Russian embassy [MTHL 2: 743].
July 30 Wednesday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore. “The proposition to W. suggested in your letter of July 28 is satisfactory. You can make it whenever you think best. I will approve” [MTP]. Note: likely Sidney A. Witherbee who was negotiating for the purchase of the Hartford house.
July 31 Thursday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam replied to L. Fred Silvers’ July 16 of Elizabeth, N.J.
It does indeed interest me—and greatly pleases me, too. Also it squares an old account, heals an old sore, banishes an old grievance: the turning of Huck Finn out of the Concord (Mass) circulating library 17 years ago because he was immoral & said he would stand by Jim & go to hell if he must.
I think your selection of authors is a healthy advance upon the old-time S. S. library menu.
August 1 Friday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Elizaveta N. Malashkina.
Dear Miss Elizabeth. I sent your letter to Paris, to my friend the great pianist Gabrilowitch (if that’s the way he spells his formidable name) & he put it into German for me and returned it. We are summering far from Riverdale, & I haven’t a photograph. But when we go home in October I will get one in New York & Autograph it & send it to you. (I have made a note of it in my note-book). I’ll not forget it [MTP].
August 2 Saturday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Charles Bancroft Dillingham.
There is one change which will be best made before the serious work of revising the play & trimming & compressing it is begun—a change which I thought of when you were here, but which did not then seem really important—but the more I think of it more I perceive that it is important.
August 3 Sunday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, advising him of the letter of Witherbee’s he was sending, and seeking his advice as to the soundness of the deal.
I am mailing you a letter containing a proposition to buy the Hartford house for $50,000 worth of 5% railroad bonds; & I am telegraphing Whitmore to ask for an appointment & go down & get your judgment as to whether the bonds are safe & sound or not. The price ($50,000) is eminently satisfactory.
August 4 Monday – Harper & Brothers wrote to Livy, advising that Sam’s article on Christian Science she ordered had not been republished in book form; the magazine was out of stock but Mr. A.S. Clark of the City could “supply good second hand copies” at more than 35 cents each [MTP].
August 5 Tuesday – In N.Y.C. H.H. Rogers gave his advice about Sidney A. Witherbee’s proposal to purchase Sam’s Hartford house:
August 6 Wednesday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote a short note to Franklin G. Whitmore, on the top of H.H Rogers’ Aug. 5 letter. “Dear Brer: The following shows that Mr. Rogers disapproves. So do I, then, for I have the greatest confidence in his judgment” [MTP].
Sam also replied to John M. Sosey, secretary of the Missouri Press Assoc.
August 7 Thursday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Klaw & Erlanger, who were agents for Lee Arthur’s dramatization of HF.
Above, you will find a pair of samples; they are authentic autographs, for I wrote them myself.
August 9 Saturday – Brand Whitlock (1869-1934), municipal reformer, “novelist, politician, diplomat and a devoted younger friend of Howells,” visited Sam. Mrs. Whitlock accompanied her husband. Whitlock wrote a friend on Aug. 11:
August 11 Monday – In York Harbor, Maine, Sam’s notebook: “The Queen of Roumania’s friend was here; also Howells’s two friends” [NB 45 TS 23]. Note: Mrs. E. Hartwig, and Mr. & Mrs. Brand Whitlock.
Sam also wrote a postcard to William Dean Howells.
August 12 Tuesday – In York Harbor, Maine Livy suffered a severe attack. Some sources cite this as a heart attack. Robert Hirst of the Mark Twain Project in an Oct. 26, 1983 letter calls it “a serious attack of asthma.” Livy also had a heart condition.
Sam’s notebook: At 7 a.m. Livy taken violently ill. Telephoned, & Dr. Lambert was here in ½ hour. She could not breathe—was likely to stifle. Also she had severe palpitation. She believed she was dying. I also believed it [NB 45 TS 23].
August 13 Wednesday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam replied to Charles S. Fairchild’s Aug. 10 inquiry about the 14 W. 10th house for rent. It was “well enough, for a dam’d old rack-heap,” but he disdained the agent, “Something S. Brown,” whom he thought dishonest, and the owners, who were in Paris and who had left “one of the Christliest book-heaps” he knew of in the house [MTP].
Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers about the crisis of the prior day for Livy (see entry) and included.
August 14 Thursday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam replied to the Denver Post’s Aug. 12 telegraph.
Your telegram reached me (per post) from “York Village” (which is a short brickbat throw from my house) yesterday afternoon when it was 30 hours old. And yet, in my experience, that was not only abnormally quick work for telegraph company to do, but abnormally intelligent work for that kind of mummy to be whirling off out of its alleged mind.
August 15 Friday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Susan Crane.