July 9 Sunday

July 9 after – Sometime during their stay in Sweden, Sam wrote “How to Make History Dates Stay.” From the Bancroft website: “This essay with illustrations, describing Clemens’s method of teaching historical dates to his children, was written in the summer of 1899 in Sweden, where the Clemenses had gone in search of treatment for their daughter Jean’s epilepsy. It was published posthumously, as ‘How to Make History Dates Stick,’ in Harper’s Monthly in December 1914” (“with original drawings by the author” see insert).

Also written during the summer of 1899 is the plotless sketch “Indiantown.” It was unpublished during Twain’s lifetime and later collected in John Tuckey’s 1967 Mark Twain’s “Which Was the Dream?” and Other Symbolic Writings of the Later Years [Camfield’s Bibliog.]. See also John H. Davis’ article “Indiantown” in the MT Encyc. P. 394-5.