April 6 Tuesday – At 4 a.m., 23 Tedworth Square in London Sam replied to a not-extant note from John Y. MacAlister.
Ah, but I mustn’t stir from my desk before night, now when the publisher is hurrying me & I am almost through [with FE]. I am up & at work now—4 o’clock in the morning—& a few more spurts will pull me through. You come down here & smoke; that is better than tempting working men to strike & go to tea.
April 4 Sunday – William Dean Howells wrote to Sam.
“I am very sorry that I cannot read at the Authors’ Guild Entertainment. I long ago decided not to take part in Author’s readings, and there is nothing but your kindly wish, to make me revise this decision in the present case. Yours…” [MTP; not in MTHL].
April 3 Saturday – Johannes Brahms, composer, pianist died in Vienna.
April 2 Friday – Munsey’s Magazine included “My Favorite Author and His Best Book,” by William Dean Howells, p. 18-25. Tenney: “Surprisingly, a discussion of many novelists in various periods as favorites; near the end, praises CY as ‘delicious…I feel under all its impossibilities that it is true to the character of that man (Morgan) and true to all the conditions’” [MTJ Bibliographic Issue Number Four 42:1 (Spring 2004) p.7].
April – The April issue of Atlantic Monthly included Charles Miner Thompson’s “Mark Twain as an Interpreter of American Character,” p. 443-50. Tenney: “‘He is not a great or a skillful writer,’ and lacks the taste of an Oliver Wendell Holmes.
March 19 Friday – In London Sam wrote to Frank E. Bliss.
I enclose renewal-application & letter about it. Please attend to the matter for me.
I finished the book (in the rough) March 1st, then spent a week gutting it. I gutted a third of it out, & then began a careful revising & editing of the remaining two-thirds. I shall complete this revision in two or three days. I set the type-writer to work on the first 10,000 words a couple of days ago.
March 28 Sunday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Pamela Moffett. Evidently Pam had written and sent a book, Belief of Unitarians for Sam and Livy to read. He wrote that he’d directed Harpers to send her a copy of JA, something he “supposed” he’d “attended to long ago,” which infers she might have asked for it. She also must have complained about Sally Moffett leaving too much money to her daughter (unnamed) for Sam replied:
March 27 Saturday – Orion Clemens finished his Mar. 26 to Sam. He discussed a City “Platform” about water and meter rates, and included a clipping from the Keokuk paper of the Platform [MTP].
This is the day that Sam suggested James Ross Clemens visit [Mar. 25 to J.R. Clemens].
March 26 Friday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam made a dental appointment. He noted in his Mar. 25 to James R. Clemens that it was his only appointment since he’d seen him (probably on Mar. 8).
March 25 Thursday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus to correct an oversight in JA, which he’d intended to be his silver-wedding gift to Livy when he began it in Florence in 1893. He had forgotten to request the dedication in the front pages and now sent the copy he wished them to insert: ,
TO MY WIFE 1895 Olivia Langdon Clemens