January to May, 1904 — Daniel Willard Fiske wrote a note on a brown scrap of paper: Since 2 this a.m. I am enjoying a stalwart assault of gout. Mrs. Schaeffer, sister of Eugene Schuyler, his biographer and the editor of his writings, with her interesting daughter, is at the Villino Montebello. I don’t [know] whether you know her or not. Kindest regards and best wishes to Mrs. Clemens & the house hold [MTP]
December – Sam’s story, “A Dog’s Tale” first ran in Harper’s Monthly this issue. Budd: “Shortly afterward it was published as a pamphlet…by the National Anti-Vivisection Society in London, dated 1903, although it was apparently not distributed until 1904. The story was published in a separate edition in September 1904 as A Dog’s Tale…and was included in the collection The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1906)” [Collected 2: 1008].
November 6 Friday – The Clemens family arrived in Genoa, Italy. The last leg of their journey was to be by train to Florence, Italy, some six or seven hours. The New York Times ran a squib on Nov. 9, p. 7 which revealed that George Gregory Smith met the family in Genoa and accompanied them on to Florence, so likely he had arranged the rail travel, some 480 miles. This would make the family’s arrival in Florence at about 8 or 9 p.m.
November –This issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal contained Thomas E. Marr’s “Three Famous Authors Outdoors, p. 36-7, with four of the photographs Marr took of Sam Clemens with a porcelain cat, and John T. Lewis at Quarry Farm.
October 24 Saturday – The Clemens family and hired help sailed for Genoa, Italy in the Princess Irene
October – Catani Ugo’s portrait of Mark Twain was published in International Studio, p. 291. No additional text was provided [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Second Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1978 p. 172].
September – At Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y. Sam gave daughter five bird and animial-related books.
He inscribed Olive Thorne Miller’s True Bird Stories from my Note-Books: “To / Jean Clemens / with her Father’s love / Sept. 1903. / It is never too late to mend. There’s plenty of time. / M.T.” [Christie’s Auction, June 24, 2009, Sale 2272. lot 16].
Sam also gave Jean the following each inscribed slightly different:
August – At Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y. Sam inscribed his photograph with an aphorism to an unidentified person: “It is never too late to mend. There is no hurry. / Truly Your friend / Mark Twain ‘ New York, August 1908” [MTP].
August or September – In N.Y.C. Sam wrote to daughter Clara in Elmira.
Dear Ben, I expect to beat this letter home, but I don’t know yet.
July 1 Wednesday – At 8:30 a.m. Sam, Livy, and her trained nurse, Miss Margaret Sherry, left the Riverdale house and went down the hill to get on a launch. From the launch to Rogers’ yacht Kanawha, then down river to the Lackawanna R.R. dock at Hoboken, the group made the 10 a.m. train for the long ride to Quarry Farm in Elmira. They arrived at 4:40 p.m. Clara and Jean were to follow them the first week in August.
June 12 Friday – Sam was in Fairhaven, Mass. to confer with Rogers about business matters relating to Collier’s offers and arranging agreements between Collier’s, Harpers, and the American Publishing Co. Rogers had been recuperating from an appendectomy. Until this date, Livy had not been well enough to allow Sam to leave Riverdale. On June 15 Lyon wrote that Sam “came back this morning from a little visit with Mr.