December 30 Saturday – An anonymous review of IA in Author’s Edition Deluxe ran in Athenaeum (London), p. 897. Tenney:

“The ‘Biographical Criticism’ of MT by Brander Matthews is ‘not very illuminating or judicious,’ but ‘the verdicts on the books separately…are excellent.’ MT’s ‘books of travel are the best known and the worst written in places, yet ‘exhilarating’ in ‘the courage of his independence, his frankness, his irreverence, and (severe critics will not add without reason) his ignorance. He is sans peur, though not, for all his apologist’s protest, sans reproche for things like the Yankee at Arthur’s Court. The stories he tells against himself, the little things an Englishman—always afraid of being ridiculous—never confesses: these are much; his artistry in style and language is a good deal more. Here he has influenced writers on this side a good deal. His claims to philosophy and a place by Molière may wait, but we bow and admire before the romances of Huck Finn, the creator of the Man from Gadsby’s [in TA], the story-teller of the Blue Jays, and plenty of other lessons in point and reticence to our own humourists. To use a golf term, Mark Twain at his best never “presses,” and they so often do. And that spoils the whole business’” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Fourth Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1977 p. 332].

Rogers’ financial statement of this date showed a credit in Clemens’ account of $55,487.33 [1899 Financial file MTP].