August 24, 1896

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August 24 Monday – Sam and Robert S. Smythe went house-hunting [Aug. 25 to Livy].

Poultney Bigelow sent a letter of condolence about Susy’s death [MTP].

August 13, 1896

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August 13 Thursday – Sam began an essay, “Man’s Place in the Animal World” on or just after this day. It was first published in 1962 in Letters from the Earth, under the title, “The Lowest Animal,” supplied by DeVoto [Budd, Collected 2: 1003]. Note: Baender’s article, “The Date of Mark Twain’s ‘The Lowest Animal’” makes a solid case for Aug. 13 as Sam’s beginning and October, 1896 as the completion for this 3,600 word piece [174-9].

August 11, 1896

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August 11 Tuesday – At Highfield House, Portsmouth Road, Guildford, England, Sam wrote to Andrew Chatto:

We’ve got ourselves located here an hour from London, for a month: & in the meantime we are spying around for a house for the winter. Mrs. Clemens is out on that quest to-day, in the neighborhood of London.

August 10, 1896

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August 10 Monday – In Southampton, England Sam wrote to James B. Pond:

We are busy house-hunting. As soon as we find shelter in some country place I shall put in a few months on a book. I managed to pull through that long lecture campaign, but I was never very well, from the first night in Cleveland to the last one in Cape Town…

August 9, 1896

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August 9 Sunday – In Hartford Jean Clemens wrote again to her father; the letter not extant but mentioned in Sam’s Aug. 26 to Livy.

August 8, 1896

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August 8 Saturday – In Hartford Jean Clemens wrote to her father; the letter not extant but mentioned in Sam’s Aug. 26 to Livy.

August 7, 1896

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August 7 Friday – In Guildford, England, possibly house-hunting, Sam wrote to J. Henry Harper (Sam was still in Southampton on Aug. 10, writing to Pond).

Yes, I find that the “Edited by” is an addition of Chatto’s.