May 21 Saturday – The London Spectator p.735 reviewed FE. Tenney: “It would have been easier to write a straightforward travel book than to write five hundred pages of uneven humor, and it would have given greater pleasure to the reader. ‘To be just, however, there are good chapters here and there, and a few pages of very fair fun; and although the book is not likely to add to the author’s reputation, it is readable and sometimes entertaining’” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Second Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1978 p.

May 19 Thursday – Vienna. This was the Clemens family’s planned move day to Kaltenleutgeben, some 45 minutes by train, but the move was delayed one day for an unknown reason [May 20 to Schlesinger].

May 18 Wednesday – Carl Kaiser-Herbst (1858 -1940), Viennese artist, wrote from Vienna to Sam: “Many thanks for your book, which I shall value highly. But you have sent me a finished work in return [for] an unfinished sketch—and I remain your debtor!” [MTP]. Note: the subject of the unfinished sketch was not determined.

May 17 Tuesday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote two notes to Chatto & Windus. The first was to send their new address in Kaltenleutgeben; the second was to ask them to “send this shilling book,” which implies an enclosure. Sam thought they would leave on May 19 [MTP]. Note: they left on May 20.

May 16 Monday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Mollie Clemens.

The “boy-picture holding the printers’ stick”—I remember it well. It was a daguerrotype. I destroyed it in Pamela’s house in St Louis in the spring of 1861 [Note: Sam did not destroy all copies of the picture, which the MTP puts a Nov. 29, 1850 date on and the photographer as G.H. Jones]

May 14 Saturday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote a long letter to Lawrence B. Evans, who had written (not extant) explaining a review. Sam thought Evans was defending England against him, though he couldn’t imagine why, giving several reasons he did not dislike the country [MTP: Varleriani]. Note: full text not available. Evans had been a professor in Berlin during the family’s 1893 stay there. He was later chairman of the history dept. at Tufts University.

May 13 Friday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus [MTP].

The books came. Many thanks.

The MS too. I still approve of it. But the attitude of mind which moved Mrs. Clemens to want it suppressed, remains. From the beginning the family have been rabid opponents of the war & I’ve been just the other way. I am indifferent about the article now. The time to print it was before Manila.

May 12 Thursday – Laurence Hutton’s book A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs (1898) likely arrived this day or the next, since Sam read some of it before retiring the following night [May 13 to Hutton].

May 11 Wednesday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam inscribed a copy of TS to an unidentified person:

Part of my plan has been to / try to remind adults of what / they were themselves once. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain/ Vienna, May 11, 1898 [MTP: Alan C. Fox catalog, No.1, Item 146].

May 9 before – Sam’s notebook entry right before the May 9 entry:

“During 8 years, now, I have filled the post—with some credit, I trust—of self-appointed Ambassador at Large of the U.S. of America——without salary” [NB 40 TS 20].

May 9 Monday – Sam’s notebook: “Today, the Nansens to luncheon” [NB 40 TS 20]. Dolmetsch writes,