September 10, 1897

September 10 Friday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to Francis H. Skrine in Perthshire, Great Britain.

The cigars have come, & they give me a noble relief & vacation from the Swiss article. Thank you ever so much. I do not know, now, what I wrote you; but whatever it was, be charitable—for there was no August day in which I was in my right mind—& there will never be an August day, perhaps, in which I shall be sane. It is our terrible month. …

….

September 7, 1897

September 7 Tuesday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to John Y. MacAlister. Sam didn’t know where MacAlister was spending his summer but hoped he was “having a recuperating good time.” He sent his regards also to Mrs. Kelly (not identified further), then asked if it were English custom to pronounce “trait” as “tray,” that there was a dispute about it in Weggis.

September 1897

September – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to Clara A. Nichols (his NB gives her address as 219 King’s Road Cheasea SW London )with a note to Chatto & Windus . He asked her to “complete the address at the bottom of this page, & mail THE PAGE to Messrs. Chatto & Windus,” adding at the bottom, “— quick”. The note to C&W directed them to put the page on one of the front fly leaves [MTP].

August 30, 1897

August 30 Monday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to the Editors of the Century , enclosing a tribute to his long-time neighbor, the incomparable scholar James Hammond Trumbull, who died on Aug. 5. Richard Watson Gilder, Robert Underwood Johnson, and Clarence C. Buel were running the Century Co. at this time and published Sam’s piece, “James Hammond Trumbull, The Tribute of a Neighbor” in the Nov.

August 28, 1897

August 28 Saturday – An anonymous article, “Mr. Stead on Mark Twain,” ran in the London Academy Fiction Supplement, August 28, p. 58-9. Tenney: “An excerpt from the sketch of MT (here attributed to William T. Stead) in the Review of Reviews” [26].

August 23, 1897

August 23 MondaySamuel Rutherford Crockett (1860-1914) wrote to Sam.

“I’ve got some boys I’d like to send you, if I might. I think Tom and Huck would like to know them. One of them is called ‘Cleg Kelly.’ Hully Gee, what a scrap there’d a been if Tom and Cleg had met” [Gribben 165; MTP].

August 22, 1897

August 22 Sunday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to Wayne MacVeagh, having delayed in thanking him for “providing me a friend in Vienna.” Sam had just finished with the last proofs of his book the day before, and pronounced it “the only book I have ever confined myself to from title-page to Finis without the relief of shifting to other work meantime.” He had:

August 21, 1897

August 21 Saturday – In Weggis, Switzerland Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, enclosing “all the proof I have” for FE. He asked what date Bliss had settled on for Chatto to issue the book. Would Chatto coordinate terms with translators and Continental publishers? Sam also requested “2 dozen strong big envelops—of a size big enough to hold 3 quires of my paper comfortably.” He wanted them for unfinished articles.

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