January 5 Tuesday – Colonel Andrew S. Burt wrote to Sam (four half pages, typed) from Ft. Missoula, Mont., having rec’d his two-page letter and inscribed copy of LM . Burt sent family sentiments, told of opening the wrapped book at Christmas and asked when Sam might return to Ft. Missoula.
January 4 Monday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London Sam cabled to H.H. Rogers: “CONTRACTS SIGNED.” Not extant but quoted in his letter this day to Rogers.
January 3 Sunday – Sam’s notebook from Jan. 7 about this day:
London — / Last Sunday [Jan.3] I struck upon a new “solution” of a haunting mystery. Great many years ago (20?) I published in the Atlantic “The Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut.”
That was an attempt to account for our seeming duality —the presence in us of another person; not a slave of ours, but free & independent, & with a character distinctly its own.
January 2 Saturday – The London Academy, p. 18 reviewed TS,D: “On the whole, this is a bright, readable book, with nothing of the detestable tendency to parody the wrong things which we have occasionally regretted in the author” [Tenney 26].
January – Sometime during the month Sam inscribed a copy of JA to Sir Samuel Swinton Jacob (1841- 1917), English architect, engineer, and writer; active in India: Colonel Swinton Jacob
Now if I could only foregather with you again! There is no such good fortune for me; but neither I nor the rest will forget that we have had that privilege once. / Sincerely Yours / Mark Twain
London, January 1897 [MTP].
Sam’s notebook entries:
January 6 Thursday – The Jan. 31 bill from Western Union shows a telegram sent to Elmira on this date, recipient unspecified (see that entry). The Feb. 1 bill from Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Co. shows a telegram sent to Elmira on this date, recipient unspecified (see that entry).
William H. Thompson for Hubbard Bros., book publishers, Phila. wrote to ask Sam to edit some work sent (nearly illegible) [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Genus of the Fireside / Nerve & Impudence” SASE remains unused in file.
January 5 Wednesday – Sam wrote to James R. Osgood:
My Dear Osgood— / All right—shall expect you Friday.
Would have written you sooner, but one of the children has been lying very close to the grave ever since New Years’ night, & was not declared out of danger till yesterday evening. / Truly Yours, / S.L. Clemens [ABE Books, Between the Covers-Rare Books, Inc. 6/11/2010]. Note: Clara Clemens was ill for several days, following Susie’s illness. See Jan. 3 to Conway.
January 4 Tuesday – The Jan. 31 bill from Western Union shows a telegram sent to Elmira on this date, recipient unspecified (see that entry).
January 3 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Moncure Conway.
January 2 Sunday – A fire started in Sam and Livy’s bedroom from a hot croup-kettle and spread to Clara Clemens’ crib and canopy. Rosa, the German nursemaid, “snatched Bay from the midst of the flames, just in time to save her life.” Sam and Rosa threw the burning bedclothes out the window. Sam wrote that “it looked, for awhile, as if the house must go” [MTBus 149]. In his Oct. 3, 1906 A.D. Clemens related that the Polish wet-nurse should have been there but was not: Julia Koshloshky. See also Harnsberger, p. 28-9.